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BL 181 .C54 1850 v.l Chalmers, Thomas, 1780-1847 On natural theology

ON

NAT U U A L T H i-:0 LOG Y.

THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. & LL.D.

l-ROFESSOR OK

THEOLOGY

IN TWii: UMVEllsiiy

OF EDINBURGH,

AMD COKRXSPONOING MEMBER OF THE ROYAL

INSTIfUTK OF FRAMCBi

IN

TWO VOLUMES.

VOL.

I.

ROBERT

YORK: CARTER & BROTHERS

NEW

No. 285 B R O A D
1850.

A V

PREFACR

The

Science of Theology in

its

most general

meaning, as comprehensive both of the Natural

and the Revealed, might,

of
its

in respect to the order to the

topics

and propositions, be presented

different
its

disciple in

two

ways

so
is

as, if

not to affect

the substance of

various arguments, at least to

affect the succession of

first

them.

According to the

way, a commencement

made, as

if

at the

fountain-head of the whole theme, with the being

and the constitution and the character of God

and then from
this point of departure,

a demonstra-

tion is carried

forward in the footsteps of the

history of the divine administration, from the first

purposes of the uncreated mind to the

of His government in eternity..

final issues

This most

fre-

quently

is

the course of those Christian writers,

who attempt
of Theology.

the construction of an entire system

They descend from

is

the heights of
it is

the eternity that

past

and, often,

not

till

they have bestowed their treatment on such ante-

mundane

topics

as

the

mysteries of the divine

essence and the high pre-ordinations of God, that

1*

PRBFACB.

they enter on the development of these in the

creation of a universe and
to the consummation of
its

moral history onward

things.

all

One cannot

peruse the successive

titles

of the chapters in the

systematic works of our best and greatest authors,

without observing

how much

the

arrangement

proceeds in the chronological order of the history,

of the divine government

so

that, after the estab-

lishment of the
specified,

initial

lessons which

we have now

we

are very generally conducted along

some such

series of doctrines as the following-^

the formation of man; his original state of innocence;

the introduction of moral evil at the
fall,

and the

consequent guilt and depravation of our species;

the remedy for this universal disease in the ap-

pointment of a Mediator ; the atonement made by

Him,

so as to release his followers from the penalty

of sin;
deliver

the doctrine of a regenerating Spirit to

them from

its

power ; the

free overtures of

this reconciliation

and recovery to the world ; the

all

great moral change experienced by

who accept
and
their

them;

their duties in the present hfe,

blissful prospects of

another: on the other hand

the fearful

doom

of all

who

reject the Christian

message

the judgment to which both the obedient

and the

rebellious will be
;

summoned

at the

end of

the world

and the destinies which respectively

is

await them, in that everlasting economy which

PREFACE.
to succeed after the present
shall

Til

economy of things

hre passed away.

such an arrangement, proceeding as
chronological
it

Now

does in the

order of

the

divine

administration, and which quadrates too with the

great successions that take place in the collective

history of the species, has peculiar advantages of
its

own.

But

there

is

another arrangement, having

a distinct principle, attended too with its own distinct

benefits,

but of another sort.

in

Instead of treating

Theology

the order of the procedure of the

divine government,
fore to the

and with general respect there-

whole Universe of created InteUigences

or at least to the whole of the

human

family,

it

may be

treated in the order of those inquiries

spirit of

which are natural to the exercised

individual

an

man, from the outset of

his religious

earnestness
within
tells

when

the felt supremacy of conscience

him of a
his

Law
own

and

tells

him of a

Lawgiver

when

sense of innumerable

deficiencies

from a higher and a holier standard of

first visits

rectitude than he has ever reached,

him

with the conviction of guilt and the dread anticipa^

tion of
rise to

a coming vengeance.

This would give

an arrangement differing from the former,

having a different starting-post or point of departure,

and, though coinciding in

some

places,

yet reversing the order of certain of the topics;

vm

FRBFACB.

and, more especially, transferring to a far ulterior

part of
the

its

course,

some of those

initial

matters in

first

arrangement, which, when discussed at so

early a stage give an obscure and transcendental

character to the very

commencement
are

of the science.
to

By

the

first

arrangement we

made

descend

synthetically,

from principles which have their

residence in the constitution and character of the

Godhead, and which transport us back

eternity
logy,

to past

as

in those systems of Christian

Theoand

where the

doctrines

of

the
all

Trinity

Predestination take the priority of

w'hich are within the reach of

those themes

human

conception,

or bear with immediate application on the desires

and the doings of man.

ment,

By

the second arrange-

we

are

made

to ascend in the order of

efforts to

man's fears and of his

be relieved from

them

^beginning, therefore, with that sense o2 God

is

which

so promptly

and powerfully suggested

;

to every

man by

his

own moral nature

and pro-

ceeding, under the impulse

of apprehensive

and

conscious guilt, to the consideration of what must

be done to escape from

is

its

consequences, and what

the sore disease under
It is

the

remedy

if

any

for

which humanity labours.

such a commencement as

obvious that with

this for

our System of

Theology, the depravity of man, along with the

moral character and government of God, and the


PREFACE.
requisitions

and sanctions of His law, would

it
;

find

an

early place in

and, whereas in the atonement

made known by a
remedy proposed,
onward

professed Revelation there

it

is

were most natural

and credentials of

to pass
this pro-

to the claims

fessed embassy from

Heaven

thence, under

the

promptings of a desiVe for

deration
of our

relief,

from the consi-

danger to the consideration of

for

the refuge

opened up

us in the

Gospel

thence to the

new
the

life

required of

all its disciples

thence

to

promised aids

of

a strength our

and grace from on high,

due obedience

for the fulfilment of

thence to the issues of our repen-

tance and faith in a deathless eternity

finally,

thence,
that

and

after the

settlement of

all

was

practical

and pressing, to the solution of

difficulties

which are grappled with at the outset of the former

scheme of Theology

but which in the latter

for their

scheme would be postponed

tific

more

scien-

treatment to that stage, when, leaving the

principles of their discipleship, the aspirants

first

after larger views

and more recondite mysteries go

on unto perfection.

By
of

the former

method Theology more

in

is

capable oi
aspect

being presented

the

form or

a regular science, with the orderly descent

of its propositions

and derivation
principles to

from the highest

;

which we can ascend

but when the

A 2

X
departure
is

PREFACK.

made from
more

the primeval designs of the

his nature

Godhead, or the profound mysteries of

^this

gives

of a transcendental, but

more

at

the

same time of a presumptuous and a priori

to

character,

the

whole

contemplation.
is

The

second method, by which departure

the suggestions and the fears of

made from

human conscience,
is

has the recommendation of being more practical

and,
if

not in the order of exposition,

more

at

least in the order of discovery.

Even Natural

Theology, taken by

itself,

is

susceptible of both
either studied as

these treatments; and

may be

the Theology of academic demonstration, or traced

to
its

outgoings as the Theology of Conscience

first stirrings

from the
fancy on

of

human

feelings or

human

the question of a God, to the fullest

discoveries that can be

made by

the light of Nature

whether of His existence or His character or KQs

ways.

In the following treatise we do not rigo-

rously adhere to any of these methods

though we
injuinitial

hold

it

incumbent upon

us, to clear

away the

rious metaphysics, in which certain disciples of the

first

school have, even in their earhest, their

lessons on the subject,

shrouded the science of

also

Theology

and we have

endeavoured to show

what those
of the

incipient, those rudimental tendencies

spirit are,

human

under the guidance of

which the disciples of the second school are carried

PREFACE.
onward
in the path of inquiry.

XI
In the execution
the
;

of these tasks

we have occupied
of

first

Book,

having the

title

PreUminary Views

and would

now bespeak
of
its

the indulgence of our readers for

illustration

what some might deem the superfluous

two
first,

and others might

feel to

be the
its

hopeless

and impracticable obscurity of

two

succeeding chapters.

The

latter complaint should

be

laid,

we

think, not

on the Author, but on the

necessities of his subject.

To
for,

the former however

he must plead

guilty;

even though at the

expense of nauseating those of quick and powerful

understanding;

and whose

taste

is

more

for the

profound than the palpable, however important

the truth inculcated

may be and however

desirable

to have the luminous conception

and mtense feehng

of

ithe should

rejoice to

be the instrument, and

more

particularly at the outset of their rehgious

earnestness, of giving the most plain and intelligible notices of their

way even unto

babes.

We

shall

not be so liable to either of these

extremes in the subsequent Books of which this

treatise
is

composed

and

the perusal of which

indeed might be immediately entered on, although

the
first

or preliminary
is

Book were

to receive the

treatment that

often given to a long

is,

and weari-

some

preface, that

passed over altogether.

for the

Wo

must confess however our desire

judgment

XU

PREFACE.

of th6 more profound class of readers on the fourth

chapter in this department of the work, and which

treats of

a pecuhar argument by

Hume

on the

side of Atheism.'

The

truth

is

that

we do not
opponents;

conceive the infidelity of this philosopher to have

been adequately met, by any of

whether as
question
it

hi^

respects the question of a

of

God

or the

of the truth
of both

Christianity.
it

In the
has been

management

controversies,

thought necesbary to conjure up a new principle for

the purpose of refuting his
especial
sophistries

and thus

to

make two

gratuitous,

and we think

very questionable additions, to the mental philo-

sophy

^in

the shape of two distinct and original

laws of the
to.

human

understanding, which, anterior

the date of his speculations, never had been

;

heard of

and probably never would, but

were imagined

for the

service which they

battles of the faith.

to render in the

We hold ourselves
;

independent

of both, these auxiliaries

and

it is

our attempt to

show on the premises

least with the help of

of the author himself, or at

no other principles than the

universal and uniform faith of

men

in the lessons

of experience,

now

of his atheistical, and afterwards

of his deistical argument

the one grounded on the

an
efiect,

alleged singularity of the world as

the

other grounded on the alleged incompetency of

human

testimony to accredit the truth of a miracle

PREFACE.

Xm
is

we

hope

to

show that there

distinct fallacy in

each, and at

the same time a contradiction between

;

the fallacies in itself destructive of both

and which

must

either

have escaped the penetration, or been

concealed by the art of this most subtle metaphystcian and reasoner.

After having disposed in the

is

first

Book of

all

that

of a prefatory or general character,

we

in the

second Book

enter on the consideration of proofs

for the being of a

God

in the dispositions of matter.

The

third

Book

is

occupied with proofs, not for the

being only, but for the being and character of

as displayed in the constitution of the

God

mind

^from

which department
late, that little or

it

has been strangely affirmed of

no evidence has yet been collected

Natural Theology.
is

for the defence or illustration of

The

object of the fourth Book,

to exhibit addi-

tional evidence for

God in the adaptation of Exterof

nal Nature to

the Mental Constitution

Man.
and

And in the fifth, which is the last Book, we endeavour

to estimate the

amount

as well as the dimness

its

deficiency of the hght of nature in respect to

power

of discovering either the character or

still

less the

counsels and the ways

of

God.

In this concluding

part of the treatise, beside recording the efforts which

Philosophy has made, and to what degree she has

failed in resolving that most tremendous

and appalling
to

of

all

mysteries, the Origin of Evil,

we attempt

MV

PREFACE.

reconcile both the doctrine of a Special Providence

and the

efficacy of

prayer with the constancy of

visible nature.

It is well to evince, not the suc-

cess only, but the shortcomings of Natural

The-

ology

and thus to

make

palpable at the same time

both her helplessness and her usefulness

if

helpless
way

trusted to as a guide or an informer on the

to

heaven ; but most useful

if,

under a sense of her

felt deficiency,

we seek

for

a place of enlargement

and are led onward

Christianity.

to the higher manifestations of

Edikburgb, nth Dte,t 16S6.

CONTENTa

BOOK
On

PRELIMINART VIEWS.
PAQB

Cba?.

T.

the Dlstincii<m between the Ethics of Theo-

logy and the Objects of Theology

17

IL On th Duty which

is

laid

upon Men by the

God,
56

Probability or even the Imagination of a

III.

Of the

Metap^ijrsics

which have been resorted to

on theside ofThekm
DR. Clarke's a priori

99

argument on the

BEING OF A GOD.
IV.

Of

the Metaphysics which have been resorted to

on the

side of

Theism,

121

MR. Hume's objection to the a posteriori

ARGUMENT, GROUNDED ON THE ASSERTION THAT THE WORLD IS A SINGULAR EFFECT.

V.

On

the Hypothesis that the

World

is

Eternal,

.161

BOOK

11.^

PROOFS FOR THE BEING OF A GOD IN THE DISPOSITIONS OF

MATTER.

CUAF.

I.

On

the Distinction 1)tween the

Laws of Matter

and the Dispositioo* of Matter,

.....

189

XVI

CONTENTS.
PAOS

Chap.

II.

Natural and Geological Proofs for a

Commence. .

ment of our present

III.

Terrestrial

Economy,

228

On the Strength

of the Evidences for a

God

in the
.

Phenoraeaa of Visible and Bxtemal Nature,

258

BOOK

III.

PBOOfS FOE THE BEING AND CHARACTER OF GOD IN THB

CONSTITUTION OF THE

HUMAN

MIND.

Chap.

I.

General Considerations on the Evidence aflForded

Human mind

by the Phenomena and Constitution of the . 280 . for the Being of a God,
SOS

n. On the Supremacy of Conscience,

IIL

On

the inherent Pleasure of the Virtuous, and

.

Misery of the Vicious Affections,

352

IV. The Power and Oprai&ba of Kabit,

868

BOOK

I.

PRELIMINARY VIEWS.

CHAPTER
On

I.

the Distinction between the Ethics

of Theology and

the

Objects of Theology/.

1,

Our

that the objects of

their

remark on the science of Theology is, it, by their remoteness, and by elevation, seem to be inaccessible. The
first
;

objects of the other sciences are either placed, as

those of matter, within the ken of our senses

as in the science of mind, they

or,

and more
time.

direct

consciousness.

come under a nearer recognition still, by the faculty of But no man hath seen God at any
neither do the felt operations

We

" have neither heard His voice nor seen

His shape."
of our
diately

And

own busy and

ever-thinking spirits

imme-

announce themselves to be the stirrings of the divinity within us. So that the knowledge of that Being, whose existence, and whose character, and whose ways, it is the business of Theology to investigate, and the high purpose of Theology to ascertain, stands distinguished from all other knowledge by the peculiar avenues through which it is conveyed to us. We feel Him not. We behold Him
not.

And however

palpably

He may

stand forth

18

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

to our convictions, in the strength of those appro-

priate evidences which

it

is

science to unfold

certain

the province of this

that we can take no our faculties whether

it is,

direct cognizance of

Him Uy

of external or internal observation.

2. And while the spirituaUty of His nature places Him beyond the reach of our direct cognizance,

there are certain other essential properties of His

nature which place

eternity of the

possible comprehension.

Him beyond Let me

the reach of our

instance the past

figure a and which has

Godhead.

One might

futurity that never ceases to flow,

no termination

but who can climb his ascending way among the obscurities of that infinite which is^ behmd him ? Who can travel in thought along the
;

track of generations gone by, till he has overtaken the eternity which hes in that direction ? Who can look across the milhons of ages which have elapsed,

and from an ulterior post of observation look again to another and another succession of centuries ; and
at each further extremity in this series of retrospects, stretch

backward

his regards

as remote

and

indefinite as ever ?

any number of successive

tion,

strides

on an antiquity Could we by over these mighty

intervals, at length reach the fountain-head of dura-

our spirits might be at rest. But to think of duration as having no fountain-head; to think of time with no beginning ; to uplift the imagination along the heights of an antiquity which hath posi-

no summit to soar these upward steeps by the altitude we can keep no longer on the wing ; for the mind to make these repeated flights from one pinnacle to another, and instead
tively
till
;

dizzied

ETHICS Of THEOLOGY.
of scaling the mysterious elevation* to
at
its foot,

l^
lie baffled

or lose itself

among

the

far,

the long-

withdrawing recesses of that primeval distance,

which at length merges away into a fathomless unknown ; this is an exercise utterly discomfiting We are called on to the puny faculties of man.
to stir ourselves

up that we may take hold of God,

but the "clouds and darkness which are round about Him" seem to repel the enterprise as hopeless
;

and man, as
if

if

overborne by a sense of

little-

nothing can be done but to make prostrate obeisance of all his faculties before Him. 3. Or, if instead of viewing the Deity in relaness, feels as
tion to time

we view Him
mystery

in relation to space,

we

shall feel the

of his being to

be alike
shall not

impracticable and impervious.

But we

again venture on aught so inconceivable, yet the reality of which so irresistibly obtrudes itseK upon nor shall the mind, as immensity without hmits we presume one conjecture upon a question which we have no means of resolving, whether the Universe have its terminating outskirts and so, however stupendous to our eye, shrink by its very finitude, to an atom, in the midst of that unoccupied
; ;

and unpeopled vastness by which it is surrounded. Let us satisfy ourselves with a humbler flight. Let us carry the speculation no further than our Let us but take account senses have carried it. of the suns and systems which the telescope has unfolded though for aught we know there might, beyond the furthest range of this instrument, be myriads of remoter suns and remoter systems. Let us, however, keep witliin the curcle of our
;

20

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

actual discoveries, within the limits of that scene

which we know
infinity

to

be peopled with

realities

and

instead of trying to dilate our imagination to the

beyond it, let us but think of God as sitting and in high sovereignty over millions of If this Earth other worlds beside our own. which we know and know so imperfectly form so small a part of His works- what an emphasis it
in state

gives to the lesson that

we indeed know a very

" These are part of his ways," said a holy man of old, " but how little a Here the revelations portion is heard of Him." of Astronomy, in our modern day, accord with the
small part of his ways.
du*ect spiritual revelations of a former age.
this

In

sentiment at
in

least
;

the

Patriarch and the

Philosopher are at one

and highest science meets

So harmony with deepest sacredness. that we construct the same lesson, whether we
and
is

employ the element of space or the element of With the one the basis of the argument is time. With the ephemeral experience of our httle day. the other the basis of the argument is the contracted observation of our both alike serve to distance
little

sphere.

They

man from

the infinite

the everlasting God.

4.

But

it

wUl somewhat

dissipate

this

felt

obscurity of the science, and give

more of

distinct-

ness and definiteness to the whole of this transcendental contemplation

if

we

distinguish aright be-

tween the Ethics of Theology, and the Objects of Theology.

5.

To

understand

this distinction let

us con-

ceive

some

certain relation

between two individual

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

21

men

as that for example of a benefactor to a

dependant, or of one
to another

who has

conferred a kindness

who has

received

it.

There

is

a moral

or ethical propriety that springs out of this relation.

It
is

that of gratitude from the latter of these in-

dividuals to the former of them.

Gratitude

is

the

incumbent virtue
is

in

such a case, and a benefactor

feel the truth of the ethical

the object of that virtue.

6.

Now to make one

it

principle,

matters not whether he has seen

many

or few benefactors in the course of his experience. Nay, it matters not whether there are many or

The moral profew benefactors in the world. priety of gratitude is that which attaches to the relation between a benefactor and a dependant; and it equally remains so whether the relation be seldom Nay, gratitude would be or often exemplified.
the appropriate virtue of this relation, although
actually
it

were never exempHfied

at

all.

The ethical

principle of the virtuousness of gratitude does not

depend on the existent reality of an object for this virtue. Let a benefactor really exist and then gratitude is due to him. Or let a benefactor only be supposed to exist and then we affirm with as great readiness that gratitude would be due to him. The incumbent morality is alike recognised whether
; ;

w^e

behold a real object, or only figure to ourselves a hypothetical one. The morality, in fact, does not depend for its rightness on any such contmgeucy, as the actual and substantive existence of a proper object to which it may be rendered.

The

virtuousness

of gratitude

would remain a
;

stable category in ethical science

although, never

22

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

once exemplified in the living world of realities, we derived our only notion of it from the possibilities which were contemplated in an ideal world of
relations.
7.

It is thus that

whether much or

little

converof th

sant with the objects of a virtue, there

virtue itself be a clear

may

and vivid apprehension.

is

peasant,

all

whose experience

limited to the

home-

can recognise the virtuousness of gratitude and justice and truth with as great correctness, and feel them too with as great intenseness, as the man of various and ample instead of his
Uttle walk,

own

who has traversed a thousand times human society. By enlarging the field of observation we may extend our acquaintance
tercourse,

wider sphere in

with the objects of moral science; but this does not appear at all indispensable to our acquaintance
with the Ethics of the science.

To

appreciate

aright the moral propriety which belongs to any

given relation,

we do

not need to multiply the

The one is not it. a thing of observation as the other is, and therefore not a thing to which the Baconian or inductive
exemplifications or the cases of

method

of investigation

is

in the

same manner apof the.

phcable.

Our knowledge

of the objects belongs to

the Philosophy of Facts.

Our knowledge

Ethics belongs to another and a distinct Philosophy^

8.

There has been too much arrogated

is

for the

philosophy of Lord Bacon in our day.

est?"
is

" Quid
it

the only question to the solution of which

It is

by observation that we ascertain what are the objects in Nature and what are, or have been, the events in the history of Nature.
apphcable.
;

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

23

this,

is another question wholly distinct from " Quid oportet?" to the solution of which we are guided by another hght than that of experience. This question lies without the domain of the Induc-

But

there

tive Philosophy,

and the science

to

whose cogniits

zance
just

it

belongs shines upon us by the light of

evidence.

own immediate

There may have been a

and a luminous Ethics, even when the lessons

and, on the other hand,
it is

of the experimental philosophy were most disre-

garded

the office of

this philosophy to rectify

and extend physical, but

an instructive anaillus-

not to rectify and extend moral science.*

9.

On

this subject there is

logy taken from another science, and which

trates

more the the objects and the

still

distinction

now

stated between

ethics of

Moral Philosophy;!

mean not to deny the legitimate application of the Bacona distinct thing from moral ian Philosophy to mental science The philosophy which directs and presides over the science. investigation of facts has to do with the facts and phenomena of mind, as well as those of matter ; and though the sanguine anticipations of Reid and Stewart, of a vast coming enlargement in the science of mind, from the call which they had sounded for the treatment of it by the inductive method, have not been realized it is not the less true that the philosophy which has for its object the determination of the Quid est throughout all the departments of observational truth, has to do with the facts of the mental world, as well as with those of the material world, and with the But the feelings and purposes of the mind classification of both. viewed as phenomena, present a different object of investigation altogether, from those feelings and purposes viewed in relation to The lattei is the object of moral their Tightness or wrongness. science. And when we say that the office of Lord Bacon's philosophy is to rectify and extend physical, but not to rectify moral science, let it be understood that the physical includes phenomena and facts wherever they are to be found more especially the phenomena of man's spirituiJ and intellectual nature, the physics of the wind, the mental physiology of Dr. Thomas Brown, the pneumatology of an older generation. f Moral Philosophy is here understood in its most generic

We

24
that

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY

is, the distinction between the mathematics and the objects of Natural Philosophy.

10.

The
is

objects of Natural Philosophy are the

The knowledge of only to be obtained by observation. Jupiter placed at a certain distance from the sun, and
facts or data of the science.

these

and with a certaui an object. His satellites, with then: positions and their motions, are also so many obvelocity, is
jects.

moving

in a certain direction,

Any

piece of matter, including those attriit is

butes which

the part of Natural Philosophy to

of,

take cognizance
science.

and movement, and

such as weight, and magnitude, situation, is an object of this Altogether they form what may be called
has done w eU in having demon-

the individual and existent realities of the science.

And Lord Bacon

strated that for the knowledge of these we must give ourselves up exclusively to the informations of

experience

that

is,

to obtain a

visible properties of material things

at them, or of their handle them, or of their weights or motions or distances we must measure them.
11. Thus far, then, do the applications of the Baconian Philosophy go, and no farther. After that the facts or objects of the science have in this way been ascertained, we perceive certain mathe-

knowledge of the we must look tangible properties we must

we can

matical relations between the objects from which derive truths and properties innumerable.

But it is not experience now which Hghts us on from one truth or property to another. The objects

M well as to our fellow-men upon earth.

meaning-, as comprehensive of the duties

owing to God

in bearen,

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

25

or data of the science are ascertained by the evi-

dence of observation ; but the mathematics of the science proceed on an evidence of their own, and land us in sound and stable mathematical conclu-

whether the data at the outset of the reasonThe moral proprieties founded on equity between man and man would
sions,

ing be real or hypothetical.

remain

like

so

many

fixtures in ethical science,

though the whole species were swept away, and no man could be found to exemplify our conclusions. The mathematical properties founded on an equality between line and line would in like manner abide as eternal truths in geometry, although matter were swept away from the universe, and there remained no bodies whose position or whose distances had to be reasoned on.
said that
It

has been already

not need to extend the domain of observation in order to have a clear and a right
notion of the moral proprieties ; and
said that
it

we do

may now be

extend the domain of observation in order to have a clear and a right

to

we do not need

notion of the mathematical properties.

lines

If straight

be drawn between the centres of the earth and the sun and Jupiter, they would constitute a triangle, the investigation of whose properties might ehcit much important truth on the relations of these three
bodies.

But

all

that

is

purely mathematical in the

it

truth would remain, although

fied,

were not exempliexemplar of an

or although these three bodies had no existence.

triangle might serve as the

Nay, the
infinity,

of triangles, which required only a correinfinity of objects, in

sponding
VOL.

order that the general

and abstract truth might become the symbol or

I.

26

ETH.CS OF THEOLOGY,

representative of an endless host of applicable and

For the objects of both you must have inductive or observational evidence but by a moral light in the one science, and
actually existent truths.

sciences

a mathematical

light in the other,

we

arrive at the

ethics of the first science, at the

mathematics of the
if

second, without the aid of the inductive philosophy.

12.
It is interesting to

note

aught

may have

fallen from Lord Bacon himself upon this subject. "In his English treatise on "the advancement of

learning," he says, " that in mathematics I can

report no deficience."
of the experimental

a true philosophy of propose on the methods of mathematical investigaAnd in his more extended Latin treatise on tion. the same subject, entitled, " De augmentis scientiarum," where he takes so comprehensive a view
of all the possible objects of
says, speaking of

So that this great author method by which to arrive at facts, had no improvement to

human knowledge, he geometry and arithmetic, " Quae

certe

duo

artes,

magno

cum
:

acumine, et industria,

veruntamen et Euclidis laboribus in geometricis nUiU additum est asequentibus quod intervallo tot seculorum dignum sit ;" or " which two arts have certainly been investigated and handled with much acuteness and industry; notwithstanding which, however, nothing has been added to the labours of Euclid in geometry by those who have followed him, that is worthy of so
inquisitoe et tractatse sunt

long a series of ages."

13.

The proper

discrimination then to be
is

made

in natural philosophy,
oi the science,

between the

facts or data

and the relations that by means of

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

27

mathe

niLics

might be educed from these data.

The

former are ascertained by observation after which no further aid is required from observation, while we prosecute that reasoning which often brings the

most weighty and important discoveries in its train. It is well to consider how much can be achieved by mathematics in this process, and how distinct its part is from that of wide and distant observation insomuch that by the light which it strikes out in
the

chamber of one's own thoughts, we are enabled to proceed from one doctrine and discovery
little

to

another.

From

three distant points

in

the

which the very mathematics are appUcable. that we employ upon a triangle constructed upon paper by our own fingers. Whether they be the positions and
firmament, a triangle

may be formed

to

the distances that

lie

within the compass of a dia-

gram, or the positions and distances that obtain in wide immensity, it is one and the same geometry which, from a few simple and ascertained data, guides the inquirer to the various and important After that observation hath relations of both.

done

its office,

and made over

it

to

mathematics the
this latter science

materials which

hath gathered

can guide the way to discoveries and applications innumerable and without one look more upon the heavens, with Sought but the student's concentrated regard on the lines and the symbols that lie
;

in little

tery

room upon his table, might the whole mysand mechanism of the heavens be unravelled. 14. Let those things, then, be rightly distinguished which are distinct from one another. They were not the objects of the science which gave the

28

ETrtics or

theology.

These objects were observer his mathematics. only addressed to his previous and independent
mathematics ; and he, in virtue of his mathematics, was enabled rightly to estimate many important relations which subsisted between the objects. Nay, it is conceivable that the objects might have re-

mained

for ever obscure

in this case,

and unknown to him. He, would have wanted an apphcation

j^hich he

now has for his mathematics; but the mathematics themselves would have been still as much within his reach or his power of acquisition His mathematical nature, if we may as before. so speak, would have been entire notwithstanding and he have had ^s clear a sense of the mathematical relations, and as prompt and powerful a faculty of prosecuting these to their results. Things might have been so constituted, as that every star in the firmament should have been beyond the
discernment of our naked eye or what is still more conceivable, the lucky invention might never have
;

been made by which the wonders of a remoter

lieavens have been laid open to our view.
still

But

they were neither the informations of the eye nor of the telescope which furnished man with his geometry ; they only furnished him with data
for his geometry.

And
to

thus, while the objects of

astronomy are brought

him by a light from afar

there enters, as a constituent part of the science,

'the mathematics of astronomy, immediately seen

by him

in the light of his

own

spirit,

and

to

master
as one

the lessons of which he needs not so

much

excursion of thought beyond the precincts of his

own

little

home.

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.
15.

29

Now, what

is

true of the mathematical

relations.

may

be also true of the moral

We may have

the faculty of perceiving these relations whether

they be occupied by actually existent objects or not ; or although we should be in ignorance of the
objects.

On

the imagination that one of the inha-

had the mysterious knowledge of all my movements, and a mysterious power of guidance and protection over me ; that he eyed me with constant benevolence, and ever acted the part of my fi-iend and my guardian I could immediately pronounce on the gratitude and the kind regard that were due from me back again And should the imagination become a reality, and be authentically made known to me as such, I have a moral nature, a law within my heart, which already tells me how I should respond to this communication. The instance is extravagant but it enables us at once to perceive what that is which must be fetched to us from without, and what that is which we have to meet it from within. The objects -are either made known by observation or,
bitants of the planet Jupiter

if

they exist without the hmits of observation, they

made known by the credible report or revelaBut when thus made known, they may meet with a prior and a ready made Ethics in ourselves. The objects may be placed beyond the limits of human experience but though the knoware
tion of others.
;

ledge of their existence must therefore be brought

to us fi'om afar, a sense of the correspondent
lities

mora-

which are due to them may arise spontaneously in our bosoms. After the mind has gotten, in whate^^er way, its information of their reality
3*

30

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.
cell of its

then within the httle

its

own

thoughts, there

own feehngs and may be a light which manimost distant

fests the appropriate ethics for the

beings in the universe. 16. We are thus enabled to bestow a certain

amount of elucidation on a question which falls most properly to be d^cussed at the outset of On this distinction between Natural Theology. the ethics of the science and the objects of the
science,

we can proceed

at least a certain

way

in

assigning their 'respective provinces to the light of

But for this nature and the light of revelation. illustra^ the again to purpose let us shortly recur
tion that

may be

taken from the science of astro-

nomy.
17. Natural Philosophy has two great departments one of them celestial, the other terrestrial and it may be thought a very transcendental movement on the part of an inquirer, a movement altogether per saltum, when he passes from the one Now this is true but only should to the other.

it

be remarked in as

far as it regards the objects

of the science.

The
;

objects of the celestial he in

a far more elevated region than the objects of the terrestrial and it may certainly be called a transcendental movement, when, instead of viewing
with the telescope some lofty peak that is sustained however on the world's surface, we view therewith
the planet that floats in the firmament and at an

inconceivably greater distance

is

away from

it.

There

a movement per saltum when we pass from the facts and data of the one department, to the facts and data of the other. But there is no such move-

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

Si

ment when we pass from the mathematics of the

one department to the mathematics of the other. There is, no doubt, in one respect, a very wide transition when instead of a triangle, whose base;

line

taken by a pair of compasses from the Gunter scale, or even measured by a chain on the
is
v^

surface of the earth,

e are called to investigate

is tiie

the relations of a triangle whose base-line

diameter of the earth, or perhaps the diameter of There is doubtless a very wide the earth's orbit.
transition

from

the objects of the

terrestrial to

those of the celestial physics;

three indivisible

when, instead of points on the parchment that lies

sight of each other,

before us, or three signposts of observation that

wave on mountain-tops within

we have

three planetary bodies that, huge though

they be in themselves, shrink into

atoms when

(ompared with the mighty spaces that lie between The fields of observation are wholly differtiiem.
ent
;

but

it

is

by the very same trigonometry that

computation of the resulting
tri-

we

achieve

theT

angles.

ascent

And we again repeat that, sublhne as the may be from the facts or data of the one

computation to those of the other, there is no gigantic or impracticable stride in their mathematics

that

if

able to trace certain curves in the

page which

lies

before us,

we

are further able to

scan the cycles of astronomy

the conceptions of our

that, widely apart as

and ordinary experiit is by the dint

are the revelations of this wondrous science from

first

ence, yet grant but the facts, and

of a familiar and ordinary mathematics, that the

mind can ascend

to them.

It is thus that lliough

32
in person

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

glen of our nativity,

we never stepped beyond the humble we may have that within the

depository of our thoughts, which guides us to the

be on the outskirts of creation. Within the little home of our bosom, there lie such principles and powers, as without one mile of locomotion are of as great avail, as if we could have traversed the infinities of space with the plumb4ine in our hand, or carried the torch of discovery round the universe. It does look a marvel and a mystery, how man is able to climb the steep and lofty ascent
certainties that

from the

terrestrial

to

the celestial in Natural

Philosophy.

But

it

helps to resolve the mystery,

when we

thus advert to the distinction between the

It at least tells us

facts or objects of the science,

of the science.

wherein the transition the other lies; and gives us to understand that, could we in any way ascertain by observation, certain of the motions and magnitudes that belong to the upper regions of astronomy, there is an instrument within our reach, by which we may

and the mathematics what that is, from the one department to

come
18.

to the accurate determination of its laws.

And

as

with

Natural,

so
its

with
objects,

Moral,

whose and these objects have their mathematical relations, most of which are found without observation, by an abstract and solitary exercise of mind on the data which have been previously ascertained. There is a great difference between the terrestrial and the celestial physics, in regard to the way by which we arrive at the data. On the one field they ai'e near at
Philosophy.
properties are found by observation;

The former hath

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

33

hand

and

at all events

do not

lie

beyond the con-

On the other which we inhabit. field they have place and occupancy at an exceeding The eye in quest of them distance away from us. and often objects earthly must lift itself above all would they vision, natural our beyond the ken of
fines of the globe
;

have been for ever unknown had not the telescope, that powerful instrument of revelation, fetched them to the men of our world, from those far and hidden obscurities in which they had lain for ages. But whatever the difference may be between the terrestrial and the celestial physics, in regard to
the way by which we arrive at their data there is no such difference in regard to the way through which, by a mathematical process of reasoning, It matters truths are educed from these data. not whether they be the elements of some terrestrial survey, or the observed elements of some distant planet that have been committed to a formula, and

made over

to the investigations of the analyst.

It

was indeed a far loftier flight, when in the capacity of an observer, he passed from the stations anil the objects of a landscape below^ to those of the But there was no transition, upper firmament. when passmg from at all corresponding to this

tne mathematics of the one contemplation to the

mathematics of the other. Even at the time when he labours to determine the form or the periods of

some heavenly

orbit, his

mind

is

only in contact

with the symbols of that formula, or with the Hucis

his

and spaces of that httle diagram, which is before eyes. It is enough that the triangle which comprehends any portion however small of his B 2


34
ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.
paper, hath the same relations and properties with the triangle which comprehends any portion however large of immensity.
is

jM-edicated of the line

It is enough that what which extends but a few

may also be predicated of the same line when prolonged to the outskirts of creation. And thus it is, that after observation hath done its work and collected what may be styled the facts of Astronomy, there is a capability in the human
inches
spirit,
lie

and upon no other materials than what

may

within the compass of a table, to unravel the principles of its wondrous mechanism and in the little chamber of thought, to elaborate a doctrine

represent the universe and is most distant processes. 19. Now whence were the mathematics by which he made an achievement so marvellous whence were these mathematics derived? For our purpose it is a sulficient answer to this question that he had not to go abroad for them. They may have enabled him to scan the cycles of heaven but most certainly heaven's lofty concave is not the page from which his geometry was drawn. To obtain the necessary mathematics he has not to travel beyond the hmits of his own humble apartment and though in person he may have never wandered from the secluded valley that bounds his habitation, yet, such is the power of this home instrument, that it can carry him in thought through the remotest provinces .of nature, and give him the intellectual mastery over them. He needs not have gone half-a-mile in quest of those conceptions which lie in little room within the receptacle of his
shall truly
its

which

realized in

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.
bosom.
initial

35

There may have been some obscureJv

or rudimental business of observation at tne

outset of his mental history, ere his notions of a

a number or a quantity were settled but it an observation that might have all been carried on within a cell or a hermitage And the important thing to be remarked is, that these notions, o{ homeward growth and origin though they be, are
line or
is
;
:

available

on the

field of

the celestial as well as on

and that when once by observation the respective data of each are ascertained, the same mathematics are applicable
that of the terrestrial Physics
to both,

20.

And

it is

just so in

Moral Philosophy. This

it

science hath

observation

its

objects that are ascertained by-

and, apart from these,

it

hath

its

Ethics, in virtue of w^hich

relations that subsist

can assign the moral

objects.

between these

The

from the ethics of the science, as the facts of Natural Philosophy are from the mathematics of Natural Philosophy. By observation we can know of certain
facts of the science are just as distinct

particulars in the state, or of certain passages in

the history of two

human

beings

and, not

by

any further observation, but by certain ethical principles and by these alone, we can pronounce on the moral relationship that is between them, and on the proprieties of that relationship. Let us but know of any two men, that the one is a friendly and disinterested benefactor, and that
of

means

the other

is

a dependant on his
is

liberalities

or of

the one that he

othca: that

the generous lender, and of the

he

is

the debtor

who had promised and

36
is

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.
or of the one an injured party, and of the other that now a prostrate offender honestly offering
is

now
IS

in

circumstances to repay

that he

he

every reparation, and pouring out fi-om the sincerity of a contrite bosom the acknowledgments and the

vows of a
of so

deep-felt repentance

these are the facts

many distinct cases presented to view either by our own observation or by the credible testimony of others; and it is not by means of any
further observation,
tional facts that
it is

not by the aid of any addi-

what be the moralities which belong to each of them. Observation, whether in Natural or in Moral Philosophy, furnishes only
learn

we

the data.

It is

by a mathematics

in the

one case,

and by an

ethics in the other that

we draw our
gratitude that

conclusions from these data.

The

should render to a benefactor, the fidehty that should observe with a creditor, the forgiveness that we should award to a penitent these are not the lessons of observation any more than the axioms
:

we we

or the demonstrated truths of geometry.

in Natural Philosophy

And

as

we should

distinguish be-

tween the
matics;
so

facts of every question

is

and

its

mathe-

there

a similar distinction to be

observed between the facts and the ethics of every question in Moral Philosophy.*
* While impressing the distinction between the ethics and the ohjects of Theology, it may be asked whence did our knowledge of the ethics originate and how is it that thev diffet in respect

of origination from our knowledge of the objects? We have already remarked that some rudimental, some obscurely initial process of observation, may, for aught we know, have been concerned in the first evolution whether of our ethical or our mathematioal conceptions ; but that after these conceptions had bej formed, there was no further obsenration necessary od our part

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

57

2L

cise nature of the transition

This helps us to understand what the preis, when we pass from

the terrestrial to the celestial of moral science. We pass to other data; but we have the same
for the completion of the respective systems of these two sciences. It is very likely that had we never been in converse either by

touch or sight with external substances, we might never have attained our pi'esent notions of position or direction or quantity; and so the principles of our mathematical nature might have lain And it ir. just as likely in dormancy and never been evolved. converse with other jentient creatures that, had we never been like ourselves, we might never have attained our present notions

of equity or of other moral relations; and so the principles of our moral nature rnigh* have lain in dormancy too and nevor been These principles are ultimate facts in the human conevolved. stitution, not communicated to us from external objects, but called forth into actual and sensible exercise by the contact .is it were and excitement of these objects. It was not thtf observation of things without us which deposited them in our min-Id: though, apart from the observation of things without us, the principles, n hether ethical or matherjatical, might never have been wakened But whether obserinto action and have never been recognise ,\ vation gave these principles at the first or only evolved iiiera, it truly affects not either the reality or the importance of the disEnough, that, some tinction on which we have been insisting. how or other, there he a mathematics in Natural Philosophy, which, without the aid of further observation, can, by a peculiar light of its own, guide the investigating spirit from one truth and discovery to another, and elicit doctrines that admit of application to thousands of the known objects in nature, and to an infinity of objects thh.t are yet unknown; and it is in like manner enough, that, some how or other, there be an ethics in Moral Philosophy, which, witliout the aid of further observation,^n, by a peculiar light of its own, guide us from one moi-al d^^-ine to another,
applicable aiike to the existent beings that lie within the sphere of our knowledge, and to those, who, though at present without this sphere, may, on coming forth by revelation to our notice, call

out the verv regards and moral recognitions that already had longThe difference established by Dr. Whately been familiar to u. between the truths which we receive by information and those which we receive by instruction, so far from being placed iu opposition ic these views, just serves to illustrate and confirm them. Tbe truths of mere information have no logical dependmce, the one upon the other; and each is made known to us on 3 distinct and separate evidence of its own. It follov/s not because

VOL,

T.

38

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

elhicajust as when in physical science we elevate our regards from the earth we tread upon to the
sublime movements of astronomy, we pass to other He who data biit have the same mathematics.

can resolve a triangle whose angles are indivisible points on the parchment that lies before him, can resolve a triangle whose angles are planets in the firmament and all that he requires to know are

make

the facts or the objects of the celestial physics, to his mathematics as available in that Natural

Philosophy whose field is the heavens, as he may have already made them in that Natural Philosophy In hke manner whose field is this lower world.

he who can assign the proprieties of that relation which subsists between a dependent family and their earthly benefactor, can assign the proprieties of that relation which subsists between our whole

For this species and their heavenly Benefactor. all that and learn; to ethics new no purpose he ha?
he requires to know are the facts or the objects of
there is a Jupiter that there must be a Georgium Sidus; and it requires an additional and independent act of observation to ascerThese informational truths, as tain the existence of the latter. they may be termed, form the proper olyects of the Inductive Philosophy; whereas the tniths of mstruclion are come at, not-

by separate obseUktions, but by development and deduction from certain primary and comprehjiisive propo^-itions wiiich virtually contain them; 'but in which they lie wrapped ana uneduced, till, by the processes whether of rixcral or matliematical reasoning-, they are brought out in their own distinct individuality to view. And thus it is, that though it needs a new observation to tell us of that before unknown and existent object the Georgium Sidus
the period of its it needs not a new mathematics, to tell either Thus too though it be by an revolution or the form of its orbit. altogether new information that we come to know of the i'xiste nv Being Jesus Christ; it is not by a new ethics that we ctnit; to acknowledge the services which we ou', or the rcvcj-cuco ai.d giv.utude which of right belong lo Hihi.

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.
this higher

39

relationship to

make

the ethics which

he already has as available in that

Moral Philo-

sophy whose
already

field is

the heaven above, as he has

in

made them

that

Moral Philosophy

whose
22.

field is the

earth below.

The

celestial physics

form a more transcen-

dental theme than the terrestrial.

racter of the
facts,

But
lies

this cha-

more transcendental

only in the

and not

at all in the mathematics.

And

so

Moral Philosophy is a more transcendental theme than the terrestrial but this too lies only in the facts, and not at all in the ethics. To obtain the facts and data of the former science, a new and peculiar mode of discovery was struck The telescope was invented. JMany of the out. objects were beyond the reach of our natural vision; and nature was provided with an assistance else there had been much of the celestial physics that The would have remained for ever unknown.
the celestial in

same may, perhaps, hold

Perhaps, there are

of the celestial ethics also. of its data that never

many

could have been ascertained but by a peculiar mode Perhaps the unaided faculties of of discovery.

man were

incompetent

to the task

and what the

economy.

telescope hath done for us in respect of the material heavens, a living messenger may have done for us
in respect of their
It is

moral and

spiritual

a very wide transition when wc pass from those distances in a terrestrial survey which can

be measured by the chain, or at the farther extremities of which we can descry some floating signal that has been erected by human hands v*'hen we pass from these through the mighty voids of hii

40

ITHICS OF THEOLOGY.

mensity; and across that interval which sepaiates the rolUng worlds from each other, can now by the
aid of the telescope look on

eye had not seen, nor ear heard

entered into the heart of
it is

moons and planets that of, neither had it

to conceive.

man

And

also

v^

ide

transition

the terrestrial to the

Philosophy
the Great

from the

when we pass from celestial objects of Moral

;

Hving society around us, to

of

Unseen who is above us and perhaps we could not have known save by
residence,

whom
special

the voice

of a messenger from the pavihon of his

who

in reference to the celestial ethics,

hath done what the telescope hath done in reference to the celestial mechanics, hath brought
out from the obscurity in which for ages they had
lain,

objects of which the world

was before un-

conscious; but to which

is

when made known she

already furnished with a morahty by which she can respond to them even as when the new facts of astronomy were presented to her view, she

already had the mathematics by which she could

tions.

draw from them the just and important apphcaThe telescope gave her no geometry,
though
it

gave her the data of

many

a geometrical
teacher from

exercise.

And

thus

it

is

that a

heaven, even though he should confine himself to

the revelation of such facts and objects as had been

before wrapt from human eye in the depths of their

own
tlie

mysteriousness

though

he should simply

lift

the veil from that which was before unseen; or

notices that he brought with

by him from the

I'pper Sanctuary, should bring forward into view

a spiritual landscape, v.hich by
its

remoteness, was


ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.
41
at least, if not altogether invisible though he should not be the expounder of any new morahty

dim
at

all,

meet and cernment

23.
trial to

might be the expounder of facts that would call forth a doctrine, or a previous disof morality, which had been already in

the world.

And
the

thus as the
celestial, is

movement from the

in Natural, so is
it

terres-

also in

By this movement w^e look at Moral Philosophy. other things, and perhaps do so by other instruIn the latter, more particularly, ments of vision. instead of our fellow men, with whom we can hold immediate converse by the organs of sense, the great object is a Being whom no man hath seen at any time but whom w^e either see by reflection from the mirror of His own workmanship, or see by revelation brought down to our earthly dwellingplaces through a direct embassy from heaven. 24. And if on earth gratitude to a human benefactor is not unknown, and it be the universal sense
;

is virtue in the emotion purity, when seen in and if truth, and goodness, from the heart of homage fellow mortal, draw an a every observer if within the bounds of our world, the obligations of honour and humanity, and justice, are felt among those who live upon it; then let a new object be set forth to us from heaven, or perhaps an object seen but darkly before and now set

of the species that there

forth in brighter manifestation

known

^let Him be made hands did frame and fashion us, end whose right hand upholds us contiiiu^ly let some new light be thrown upon His chara:ler aiul ways; some new and before unheard

as the

God whose


42
ETHICS OF THCOLOGY.
*

demonstration given of a holiness that can descend to no compromise with sin, and yet of a love that

by
let

all

the sin of His creatures

is

unquenchable

stand out in the lustre of His high attributes, with each shedding a glory upon the
other,
this

Him now

yet mercy rejoicing over them all let Being, at once so lovely and so venerable, be

expounded to our view, as the Father of the human and as sending abroad upon that world which He hath so plenteously adorned, a voice of
family,

general invitation,

that

might again return be securely seated

of

to his forgiveness,

in

them

all

is

wandering children and He again the confidence and affection

his

it

needs not that there be superadded

qualified to

to our existing Ethics,

that
tion

we may be
which
as he
is

some new principle, in order meet this new revela-

addressed to us.

From

the nature

of

man

already constituted, there might

go back a moral echo to Him who thus speaketh to them from heaven and they might only need to look
:

upon the now manifested Deity, that

their hearts

may

feel the love, or their consciences

may

attest

the obedience which are due to

25.

Him.
our ethics in

And

there

is

nought

to baffle

the infinity of God, or in the distance at which He stands from us. Only grant Him to be our benefactor

and our owner and on this relation alone do we confidently found our obligations, both of
;

gratitude and of service.

either in the

Just as there

is

nothing,

mighty distance or overbearing magnitude of the sun, that baffles our mathematics. The magnitude of quantity does not affect the relations of quantity.
It only gives

a larger result

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.
to the calculation.

43
is

And

the

same

true of the

moral

relations.

Though

the

oe'mg

who

is

the

object of them, be exalted to

the uttermost though

the beneficence whicli he has rendered outweigh indefinitely all that ever was conferred upon us by our fellow-men, there is nothing in this to disturb

the

conclusion

that

we owe him a
of the return
it

return.

It

only enhances the conclusion.

portionally the

It only swells pro-

amount

and, instead
all

of
of

some
all

partial offering,

points to the dedication

our powers, and the consecration of

our

habits, as the alone adequate

loyalty.

expressions of our

celestial ethics,
gifts,

In ascending from the terrestrial to the we come in view of more elevated

and a more elevated giver ^but the relation between the two elements, of goodwill on the one hand, and of gratitude on the other, subsists as before and the only effect of this ascent upon the morality of the question, is, that we are led thef eby
to infer the obligation of a

of a

still

still more sacred regard, more duteous and devoted obedience.

may have been the original My acquiescence our mathematics. in the axioms of Euclid may have been the fruit of that intercourse which I have had with the external
26. Observation
all

source of

and but for the world by means of my senses exercise of the eye or of the feehngs on visible or tangible objects, I might never have obtained the
;

conception of

lines, or of figures
it is

bounded by

lines.

This may be true

and yet ; every essential or elementary idea of the mathematics may be acquired in early life, and with a very
limited range of observation
;

not less true that

and that we do not

44
need
is

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.
to

widen or extend

this

range

nay, that withit

out the aid of one additional fact or experience,

possible for the spirit of
first

man

to pass

the

principles of the science,

onward from and traverse all

the fields both of geometry and analysis that have

yet been explored.

little

More

particularly
for

with

that

of observation,

which

aught

we know

might have been necessary ere we could conceive aright of one triangle with that, and no more, might we master the many thousand properties of each individual in that infinity of triangles that could be furnished by the points innumerable of space and so, while passing from one truth to

little diagram that is before me, I and without one particle of more light being borrowed from observation, be storing up in my mind the truths of a high and distant astronomy. And, in like manner, observation it may be con-

another in the
in fact,

may

tended

is

the original source of

all
it

our ethics,
supplied the

though

should rather say that

occasional cause for the development of our ethical

faculties.

But

in either

way,

must perhaps have

seen an exemplification of kindness from one being to another, ere I could understand that gratitude

was the emotion which ought to be rendered back But after having once gotten my conception and my belief of the virtue of this pecuHar
again.
relationship

this will serve

me

for all the cases of

Beneficence that shall ever afterwards come within my knowledge. The moral will admit of as wide

and as confident an application as the mathematical and only grant me to have ethics enough for perceivmg that when between two fellow-men

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.
there
is

45

gratitude on the

good-will on the one side, there ought to be other and then simply with ths

information that

God

exists,

and that

of kindness, the very ethics which told

owe owe

to a beneficent

neighbour also

He is a God me what I tells me what I

to a beneficent Deity.

27.

We may thus learn what is the precise ascent

in

which we make,

passing from the terrestrial to

Let us disthe celestial in Moral Philosophy. and the science the of objects the tinguish between these that notice take and science of the ethics

two things stand related to each other, as do the objects of Natural Philosophy to the mathematics It is well to understand of Natural Philosophy. that a revelation of new facts might of itself suffice
for this transition

from the lower to the higher department of the subject and that we do not need We may perhaps to go in quest of new principles.

feel relieved

from the apprehension of some great and impracticable mystery in this progress and, at all events, it is most desirable that we conceive aright what be the actual stepping-stones by which

it

is

accomplished.

revelations of the telescope have

to the perceptions of the

In Natural Philosophy the been super-added

naked eye

and by

this

instrument what was before seen has been

made

more

notice

and there has been brought forth to what before was wholly invisible. Perhaps too in Moral Philosophy, a science which in its most comprehensive sense embraces all the discoverable relations of the moral world, some new and peculiar revelation hath been super-added to the powers and the perceptions of Nature and by
distinct,

4C

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY,

which, we both see brighter what before was seen but dimly, and there may have further been made known to us what to the unaided mind of man is

wholly undiscoverable.

But still they might mainly

and distinguish Moral Philosophy. It is
pecu-

be the peculiar facts or peculiar data which constitute the peculiarities of the celestial
it

from the

terrestrial of

in the facts
liarity lies.

and not

in the ethics that the

The question then is " What and how are they accredited ?" We
28.

are the facts,

already have

an

ethics suited to all the objects that

we

actually
objects

know

and

that could be adapted to

more

on the moment of their being proposed to us. By the mathematics now in our possession, we could assign orbits corresponding to every possible law of There is only one such attraction in astronomy. law ascertained by observation and the mathema;

tical

result of
is

it

is

the

elliptic

course of every

planet that

within the reach of our instruments.

to

Could we be made
is

know

of the fact, that there

a gravitation of another rate in distant places of

the universe,

we

are already furnished with the

mathematics that would assign the path and periodical velocity of all the projectiles which are under
it.

Should a new satelhte of Jupiter be discovered,

the mathematics are at hand by which to assign the path that he ought to follow

and,

remark from the physical

I
is

to the

to extend this moral world, should

be authentically made sure of the fact that there a mystic influence between some certain inhabitant of that planet and myself, that in his breast there is a sympathy towards me, and in his hands

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

47

a power over me that he hath an eye upon aU movements, and by the charm of some taUsman in his possession, can read all the feelings and fluctuations of my bosom that, withal, he is my watchful and unwearied friend, and that every opportune

my

suggestion, whether of comfort in distress or of

counsel in the midst of

my

perplexities,
this

is

but the

secret whisper of his voice

were a

fact utterly

beyond the range of

if

all

our present experience, yet

only ascertained to be a fact not beyond the range

of our present and existing ethics

and the grati-

tude I should owe to this beneficent though unseen guardian of my walk is as sure a dictate of our

known and established morality, as is the gratitude that I owe to the nurse who tended my infancy, or to the patron who led me step by step along the
bright prosperity of
29.
^1^0

my manhood.
to

ascertain then whether there be indeed a

celestial ethics

we hav

not of principles.
morality to devise.
of moral

We

go in quest of facts, and have no new system of

There are present capacities judgment and emotion within our heart; and for the development of which the world that is immediately around us is crowded with the objects The question is, whether to which they respond.
there are not such objects also out of our world

and which when so addrest

that

to

our understanding

we

perceive their reality, do not furthermore

or of a something

so address our sense of duty, as to convince us of a

something which we ought to

feel,

which we ousrht o
30.

to do.

We

are aware, that along with the total

totaJ

degeneracy of man, there has been a

darkness

48
ascribed to

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY,

him

but we

feel quite

assured that in

the vagueness and vehemence wherewith this charge

has been preferred, the distinction between the Theology has not been enough adverted to. There is no such bhndness
objects and the ethics of
in

respect to moral distinctions that there

is

in

respect to objects placed beyond the domain of observation, and holding substantive existence in a
spiritual

and unseen world.

It is true that there Ls

diversity of moral sentiment

among men^ and

that,

along with the general recognition of one and the same morals in the various ages and countries of
the world, there have been certain special and im-

portant modifications.

These have

so far

been
of

well accounted for by Dr.

his

Thomas Brown in one

Lectures upon

this subject

and

what he has
to*

said on the effect of passion in so blinding ibv a time

the
i:s

mind

that

is

under

its

influence as

obscure

perceptions of moral truth,

may

apply to whole

generations of

men

unbridled in revenge or im-

mersed in the depths of sensuality. Even the ivorst of these, however, will pronounce aright on ,he great majority of ethical questions and should i-he power of profligacy or passion be from any cause suspended, if solemnized or arrested by the revelation of new objects from heaven, or (even vithout the intervention of aught so striking as this) if but withdrawn for a season from those influences which darken the understanding only because they

ileprave the affections,

it

is

wonderful with
is

how

much
the

truth of sentiment virtue

to virtue is felt.

appreciated and
evidences

homage

A thousand

of this could be extracted, not from the light and

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.
licentious,

49

but certainly from the grave and didactic

authorship both of Greece and

Rome.
all

And

while

beyond the

limits of

Christendom,

those peculiar

revelations of the Gospel which relate either to past

events or to existent objects are almost wholly un-

we are persuaded that bosoms may be found which would do the homage of acknowledgknown
ment
its

at least,

if

not of obedience, to
*

its

truth

and

purity and

its

kindness and its generous self-devo-

tion all the world over

between the objects and not have expatiated so long had we not been persuaded of the important uses to v/hich it may be turned in estimating the legitimacy and the weight of various
31.
this distinction

On

the ethics of Theology

we should

sorts of evidence for the truth of religion;

and,

more

especially, in helping us to

mark the respec-

which belong to the light of nature We sometimes hear of the apphcation of the Baconian Philosophy to the Christian argument ; and it is our belief that
tive provinces

and the

light of revelation.

Philosophy so revered in modern times, and which the experimental science of our day stands indebted for its present stability and gigantic elevation, does admit of most wholesome and beneficial application to the question between
this

to

* It is thus, Uiat tliere is a pervading error in Leland's book oa There is not one. trace, from bethe Necessity of Revelation. ginning to end of it, of that discrimination which we have now been urging nor do we remark in it any difference at all between the ignorance which springs from moral perversity and that which It is a book, however, spriogs from mere intellectual deficiency. that is worthy of perusal, though more for the exceeding fukes3 of its learned information, than for its just or enlightened princi

pies.

VOL.

I.

50

ETHICS

Ol-

TiiGLOGY.

infidels and believers. But then we must so dis* criminate as to assign those places in the controversy where the Philosophy of Bacon is, and

those where

it

is

not applicable.

It is

of para-

mount authority on

the question of facts or objects.

On the question of ethics again, it is not more admissible than on the question of mathematics.
limits,
it

And by thus we not

confining

it

within

its

appropriate
of
to

make a sounder application but an apphcation of it that we shall find

only
to the cause.

be greatly more serviceable

32.

Our

first

inference fi'om this argument

is,

that even

though the objects of Theology lay under total obscuration from our species though a screen utterly impervious were placed between

the mental eye of us creatures here below, and

those invisible beings by

whom

lieaven

is

occupied

which on the screen being in any way withdrawn, will justly and vividly respond to the objects that are on the other side of it. There might be a matheethics in reserve,

still

we might have an

matics without Astronomy, but of which instant application can be made, on the existent objects of

Astronomy being unveiled. And there may be a morals without Theology, that, on the simple presentation of its objects, would at once recognise the duteous regards and proprieties which belong to them. We often hear, in the general, of the dark-

ness of nature.
ethics

But a darkness in regard to the might not be at all in the same proportion or degree as a darkness in regard to the objects of Theology. We can imagine the latter to be a
total darkness, while the former
is

only a twilight

ETHlCa OF THEOLOGY.
obscurity; or

51

may even but need

a rev elation of

the appropriate facts to be excited into full illumiThere may be moral light along with the nation.

ignorance of

all

supernal objects, in which case

there can be no supernal application.

objects of a sublunary scene, this

But
light

yet, in

reference to the near and palpable and besetting

same

might

be of most useful avail

society.
It is

in the business of

human

thus that
of the

we understand
and of

the Apostle

when speaking

work

of the law being written

their being

in the hearts of the Gentiles,

law unto themselves.

else excuse

It at least furnished as

much

light to the conscience as that they could accuse or

each other.

In this passage he conif

cedes to nature the knowledge,

of

not of the objects

There might Theology at least of the ethics. need perhaps to be a revelation ere any moral aspiration can be felt towards God ^but without such a revelation, and without any regard being had to a God, there might be a reciprocal play of the moral feeUngs among men, a standard of equity and moral judgment, a common principle of reference alike indicated in their expressions of mutual esteem and mutual recrimination. 33. This, we think, should be quite obvious to

those

who

are at

all

acquainted with the literature

It is true that ere and history of ancient times. all the phenomena even of pagan conscience and sensibility can be explained, we must admit the

knowledge, or at least the imagination of certain objects in Theology. But it is also true that apart

from Theology altogether, with no other objects in the view of the mind than those which are supplied


52
ETHICS OF THEOLOGV.
within the limits of our visible world and by the

was a general sense and the wrong an occasional exemplification of high and heroic virtue with the plaudits of its accompanying admiration on the one hand or, along with execrable villany, the prompt indignancy of human hearts, and execration of human We are not pleading for tongues upon the other. the practical strength of morahty in those days, though we might quote the self-devotion of Regulus, the continence of Scipio, and other noble sacrifices at the shrine of principle or patriotism. It is enough for our object which is to prove, not the power of moraUty, but merely the sense and recognition of that the nobihty of these instances was felt, it that the homage of public acclamation was rendered to them, that historians eulogized and poets sung the honours of illustrious virtue. We are not contending for such a moral nature as could achieve the practice, but for such a moral nature as could
fellows of our species, there

of the right

discern the principles of righteousness.

In short
capacity

there was a natural ethics

among men, a

both of feeling and of perceiving the moral distinc-

between good and evil. The works of Horace and Juvenal and above aU of Cicero abundantly attest this nor are we aware of aught more splendid and even importantly true in the whole authorship of Moral Science than the following passage from the last of these writers. " Est quidem vera .ex, recta ratio, naturre congruens, diffusa in omnes, quae vocet ad officium constans, sempiterna jubendo, vetando a fraude deterreat; quae tamen neque probes frustra jubet aut vetat, nee improbos
tion

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

53

jubendo aut vetando movet. Huic legi, nee abrogari fas est, neque derogari ex hac aliquid licet neque tota abrogari potest. Nee vero per senatum, aut per populum, solvi hae lege possumus, neque
est quaerendus explanator aut interpres ejus alius.

Nee
alia

erit alia lex

Romae,

alia

Athenis

alia

nunc,

posthac ; sed et omnes gentes, et omni tempore, una lex et sempiterna, et immortalis continebit;

communis quasi magister, et ImpelUe legis hujus inventor, rator omnium Deus. non parebit, ipse se qui cui lator; discepator, fugiet, ac naturam hominis aspernabitur ; atque hoc ipso, luet maximas pcenas, etiam si csetera Such is the testimony supplicia quae eiFugerit."
unusque
erit

of a heathen to the* law within the breast

and
to
its

armed too with such power

living

of enforcement, that,

apart from the retributions of a reigning and a

judge,

man

cannot

offer

violation

authority without at the

greatest of
all

same time
nature.

suffering the

penalties in the violence which he

thereby offers to his

34.

own

But though we have thus separated between

the Ontology and the Deontology of the question, between man's knowledge of existences and his knowledge of duties, between the light by which he views the being of a God and the light by which he views the services and affections that we owe to him ^let it not be imagined that in conceding to

nature the faculty of perceiving virtue,

we concede

to her such a possession of virtue, as at all to miti-

gate that charge of total and unexcepted depravity wliich the Scriptures have preferred against her.

And neither let it be imagined

that

we even

accredit

54

ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.

her with such an unclouded perception of Ethics, as to leave nothing for revelation to do, but to superadd the knowledge of objects so that on the

simple information of what

stantly

is

truth,

we

could in-

and decisively follow it up with the conclusion of what is duty. We believe that Christianity not only addresses to the mind of her disciples objects which were before unknown, but quickens and enlightens them in the sense of what is right and wrong making their moral discernment more clear, and their moral sensibility more tender.*

But remember that

tliis

Christianity herself presupposes

moral sense in nature

^not

however so as

to

imputation of nature's worthlessness, but really and in effect to enhance it. Had nature been endowed with no such sense, all responsibihty
alleviate the

Where would have been taken away from her. there is no law there is no transgression ; and it is just because men in aU ages and in all countries are a law unto themselves, that the sweeping condemnation of Scripture can be carried universally round among
the sons and daughters of our species.
will help us to

35. This distinction in fact between the ethics

and the objects of Theology

our nature.
It will lead

defend

aright the great Bible position of the depravity of

us to perceive that there

may be a morality without godliness, even as there may be a mathematics without astronomy. If we make proper discrimination we shall acknowledge how possible it is that there may be integrity and
humanity
in our doings with each other

while the

* This subject will fall to be more thoroughly dbcussod in Chapter on the Interna Existence of Christianity.


ETHICS OF THEOLOGY.
great unseen Being with
phatically to do,
is

55

whom we

have most em-

forgotten and disowned by us.

We
in

shall at length

understand how along with the

play and reciprocation of

our lower world

we
v>

many terrestrial moralities may he dead, and just

all tliose

from our heedlessness of the objects, to

celestial moralities

by

hich

we

are fitted for a

higher and a better world.

rightness of nature

We

shall cease

from a

treacherous complacency in the generosity or up-

and no longer be deceived, by upon earth, into the imagination of our most distant claim to that heaven, from the elevation and the sacredness of which all the children of humanity have so immeasurably
;

the existence of social virtue

fallen.

36.

So

far

from the degree of naturallight which

we have contended for being any extenuation of human depravity, it forms the very argument on
which the Apostle concluded that all, both Jews and Gentiles, were under sin. His inference from the universal possession of a conscience among men
is,
*'

so that they are without excuse."

It is not

because they are blind that they are chargeable but it is because they to a certain extent see that
therefore their sin remaineth with them.

We

in-

deed think that the viev^^ which we have given may be turned to the defence of Orthodoxy, when the light of a man's conscience and the natural virtues of his life are pled in mitigation of that deep and desperate wickedness which is ascribed to him in There may the Bible. For it suggests this reply be a mathematics without astronomy there may be an Ethics without Theology. Even though the

56

ON THE BEING OF

A GOD.

phenomena of the visible heavens are within the reach of human observation yet, if we will not study them, we may ^iil have a terrestrial geometry ; but a celestial we altogether want, nay have

wilfully put away from us. And so also, we may be capable of certain guesses and discoveries re-

specting

God yet,
still

if

we

will

not prosecute them,

we may
society

have a

terrestrial morals,

and yet be

in a state of practical atheism.

The

face of

humai

occasionally brighten with the patriotism and the generosity and the honour which reci-

may

procate from one to another amongst the

of the

may be unmersed in deepest unconcern about their common Father who is in heaven all may be living without God
family
all

human

and yet

members

in the world.

CHAPTER
On
the

II.

Duty which

is

laid upon

Men

hy the Probability or

even the Imagination of a God.

have already seen that even though the Theology lay under total obscurity, there might be a distinct and vigorous play of the Ethics
1.

We

objects of

notwithstanding ^kept in actual exercise among those objects which are seen and terrestrial, and in readiness for eventual exercise on the revelation of

unseen and

celestial objects. This, however, does not accurately represent the real state of nature for in no age or country of the world, we beheve.

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

did the objects of Theology
entire
lie

57

hidden under an

and unqualified darkness.

There

is,

in

reference to them, a sort of twilight glimmering, more or less, among all nations and the question

regimen or responsibility may that man be said to lie under, whose sole guidance in Theology is that which a very indistinct view of its
is,

what

sort of

objects,

though with certainly a more

distinct sense

of

its ethics,

may

suggest ?

2.

duty laid upon

3.
It

This brings us to the consideration of the men by the probability or even the

imasfination of a

God. must now be abundantly obvious, that

along with nature's discernment of the ethics, she may labour at the same time under a comparative
blindness as to the objects of Theological Science. On the hypothesis of an actually existent God,

there

may be an urgent
But
clear
still

sense in

human

consciences

of the gratitude and the obedience which belong

to him.

while this ethicaV apprehension

\ivid,

may be

and

there

may be

either a

bright or a dull conviction in regard to the truth of should here distinguish the hypothesis itself.

We

the things which be distinct from each other

and

carefully note that, along with a just discernment

of the proprieties
relations,

which belong

to certain

moral

the question may still be whether these relations be in truth exemplified by WTiat any real and hving beings in the universe. supposing relations, moral certain is right under

unresolved,

them

to

be occupied,
is

is

exists in nature or in the univ^erse to

relations

another.

It

What one consideration. occupy these does not follow that though

c2

58

ON THE BEING OF

GOD.

nature should be able to pronounce clearly and

confidently on the
first

of these topics

she

can

therefore pronounce alike confidently on the second

of them.

The two

investigations are conducted

on

different

principles;

and the two respective

light

sorts of evidence upon which they proceed are just

as different,

as

is

the

of

a mathematical

demonstration from that light of observation by

which we apprehend a fact or an object in Natural Philosophy. We have already conceded to nature the possession of that moral light by which she can to a certain, and we think to a very considerable
extent, take accurate cognizance of the ethics of

our science. And we have now to inquire in how far she is competent to her own guidance in seeking
after the objects of the science.
4. 5.

The main

object of Theology

is

God.
our
first

Going back then

to the very earhest of

this subject,

mental conceptions on

we

advert

and logical import, There being no between unbelief and disbelief. ground for affirming that there is a God is a different proposition, from, there being ground for The former we affirming that there is no God. apprehend, to be the furthest amount of the atheistical verdict on the question of a God. The atheist does not labour to demonstrate that there is no But he labours to demonstrate that there God. He does is no adequate proof of there being one.
to the distinction in point of real

not positively affirm the position, that

God

is

not

but he affirms the lack of evidence for the position, that God is. Judging from the tendency and effect
of his arguments, an atheist does not appear posi-

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

tively to refuse that a

59
insists

God may

be

but he

that

He

has not discovered Himself, whether by

the utterance of His voice in audible revelation or

by the impress of His hand upon visible nature. His verdict on the doctrine of a God is only that
it

is

not proven.

It is

not that
is

it

is

disproven.

He

is

but an Atheist.

He

not an Antitheist.

6.

Now there

is

one consideration, which affords

the inquirer a singularly clear and

commanding
It

position, at the outset of this great question.

is this.

We

cannot, without a glaring contraven-

tion to all the principles of the experimental philo-

sophy,

recede

to

a further

distance

from

the

doctrine of a God, than to the position of simple

We do not need to take our departure atheism. from any point further back than this, in the region of antitheism for that region cannot possibly be entered by us but by an act of tremendous presumption, which it were premature to denounce as
;

impious, but which

we have the authority of all denouncing as unphilosophical. We can figure a rigidly Baconian mind, of a cast so slow and cautious and hesitating, as to demand more of proof ere it gave its conviction to the doctrine that there was absolutely and certainly But, in virtue of these very attributes, a God.
modern science
for

would

it,

if

a sincere and consistent mind, be at

least equally slow in giving its conviction to the

doctrine that there

not a God.

was absolutely and certainly Such a mind would be in a state neither for assertion nor for denial upon this subject. It would settle in ignorance or unbelief
which
is

quite 'another thing from disbelief.

The


60
place
it

ON THE BEING OF

A GOD.

occupied would be some mid-way region

unwarranted from any would at the very least feel equally unwarranted to affirm that God is not. To make this palpable, we have only to contrast the two intellectual states, not of theism and atheism, but of theism and antitheism along with the two processes, by which alone, we can
of scepticism
if it felt

and
it

evidence before

that

God

is, it

be

logically
7.

and legitimately led to them.

be able to say then that there is a God, we may have only to look abroad on some definite territory, and point to the vestiges that are given of His power and His presence somewhere. To be able to say that there is no God, we must walk the whole expanse of infinity, and ascertain by
observation,
that such vestiges are to be found

To

nowhere.

Grant that no trace of

Him
it

can be
follow,

discerned in that quarter of contemplation, which

our puny optics have explored

that,

does

throughout

all

immensity, a Being with the

essence and sovereignty of a God is nowhere to be found? Because through our loopholes of communication with that small portion of external nature which is before us, we have not seen or ascertained a God must we therefore conclude of every unknown and untrodden vastness in this illimitable universe, that no Divinity is there ? Or because, through the brief successions of our little day, these heavens have not once broken silence, is it therefore for us to speak to all the periods of that eternity which is behind us and to

say, that never hath a

God come

forth with the

uiiequivocal tokens of His existence?

Ere we can

ON THE BEING OF
say that there
is

A GOD.

God we must
;

have seen, on
access,

that portion of Nature to which

we have

the print of His footsteps

or have had direct in-

timation from Himself; or been satisfied by the authentic memorials of His converse with our species

But ere Ave can say that there is in other days. no God we must have roamed over all nature, and seen that no mark of a Divine footstep was there; and we must have gotten intimacy with every existent spirit in the universe, and learned from each, that never did a revelation of the Deity

visit

him

and we must have searched, not

into the

records of one solitary planet, but into the archives of all worlds, and thence gathered, that, tlrroughtion of a reigning

out the wide realms of immensity, not one exhibiand living God ever has been

made.
within

Atheism might plead a lack of evidence

its

But antitheism are, and which things the upon pronounces both

own

field of observation.

the

things which are not within that field.

It

breaks forth and beyond all those limits, that have been prescribed to man's excursive spirit, by the

sound philosophy of experience and by a presumption the most tremendous, even the usurpation of all space and of all time, it affirms that there is no
;

God.

To make

this out,

we

should need to travel

abroad over the surrounding universe till we had exhausted it, and to search backward through all the hidden recesses of eternity; to traverse in every
direction the plains of infinitude, outskirts of that space which

and sweep the

interminable

is itself

world of ours, the report of a universal blank, wherein we had not

and then bring back

VOL.
T.

to this little


62

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

met with one manifestation Ox* one movement of a For man not to know of a God, he has only to sink beneath the level of our common nature. But to deny him, he must be a God himself. He must arrogate the ubiquity and omniscience of the Godhead.*
presiding God.
8.

It affords

a firm outset to this investigation,

that

we cannot recede a

trine to

greater way from the docbe investigated, than to the simple point

of ignorance or unbelief.

We

cannot,

without

making inroad on the soundest principles of evidence, move one step back from this, to the region of disbelief. We can figure an inquirer taking up his position in midway atheism. But he cannot, without defiance to the whole principle and philosophy of evidence, make aggression thence on the side of antitheism. There is a clear intellectual
*

This idea has been powerfully rendered by Foster in the

:

fol-

lowing' passage extracted from one of his essays

'

The wonder turns on the gi-eat process, by which a man could grow to the immense intelligence that can know there is no God. What ages and what lights are i-equisite for this attainment? This intelligence involves the very attributes of Divinity, while a God is denied. For unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in every place in the Universe, he cannot know but there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity by wliich even he would be overpowered. If he does not absolutely know every agent in the Universe, the one that he does not know may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of all the propositions that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants may be that theie is a God. If he cannot with certainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, that cause may be a God. If he does not know every thing that has been done in the immeasuralila ages that are past, some things may have been done bv u Gud. Thus unless he knows all things, that is, precludes anoth'er Deity by being one himself, he cannot know that the Being whose existence he reiects, does not exist."

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

principle, tion
;

63

which forbids his proceeding in that direcand there is another principle equally clear, though not an intellectual but a moral one, which urges him, if not to move, at least to look in the
opposite direction.
Vv'e

arc not asking him, situated

where he
being,

is,

to believe in
little

God.

For the time

we

as

expect a friendly as

hostile decision

upon the question.

is,

we Our

desire a

only de-

mand

for the present

that he shall entertain the

question.

And

to enforce the

demand, we think

that an effective appeal might be

made

to his

own

We suppose him still to be an moral nature. for, in all atheist, but no more than an atheist fi'om remove farthest very logic, the right Baconian theism, at which he or any man can be placed by

God, is at the point of might well assume this point, as the utmost possible extreme of alienation fi'om the doctrine of a Creator, to which the mind of a creature can in any circumstances be legitiWe cannot move from it, in the mately carried.
the lack of evidence for a

simple

neutrality.

We

direction towards antitheism, without violence to all

that

is

just in philosophy

and we might therefore

commence with

inquiring, whether, in this lowest

state of information

and proof upon the question,

there can be any thing assigned, which should lead

us to move, or at least to look in the opposite

direction.
9.

In the utter destitution, for the present, of

any argument, or even semblance of argument, that a God is there is, perhaps, a certain duteous movement which the mind ought to take, on the

bare suggestion that a

God may

be.

An

object


64
in

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

moral science may be wholly unseen, while the may not be wholly unfelt. The certainty of an actual God binds over to certain distinct and most undoubted proprieties.
Ethics connected with that object

But
its

so also

may

the imagination of a possible

God
in

in which

case, the very idea of a

God, even

most hypothetical form, might lay a responsibility, even upon atheists.

10.

Here then

is

one palpable use for the dis-

between the ethics and the objects of Theology, or between the Deontology and Ontology of it. We may have a moral nature for the one, even when in circumstances of utter blindness to the other. The mere conception of the objects is enough to set the ethics agoing. Though in the
tinction

dark as to the question whether a God exists, yet on the bare imagination of a God, we are not at aU in the dark as to the question of the gratitude and
the obedience which are due to Him. There is a moral light in the midst of intellectual darkness an ethics that waits only for the presentation of the
its most an instant sense and recognition of the moralities and duties that would be owing to Him. Should an actual G od be revealed, we clearly feel that there is a something which we ought to be and to do in regard to

objects.

The very

idea of a God, even in

it

hypothetical form, will bring-along with

this should a possible God a something not only which we feel that we ought, but a something which we actually ought to do or to be, in consequence of our being visited by such an imagination. The thought
;

Him.

But more than

is

be imagined, there

of a

God

not only suggests what would be our in-

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

cumbent
obligations,

65

did

obvious to our convictions

such a Being become ^but the thought of a

suggests what are the incumbent obhgations which commence with the thought itself, and are

God

anterior even to the earliest

dawn

of evidence for a

Deity.

We

hold that there are such obligations

is, if

and our purpose now

them.
11.

possible, to ascertain

To make
all

family suffering
translated

we might imagine a under extreme destitution, and at once into sufficiency or affluence
this palpable,

Had the benefactor by an anonymous donation. been known, the gratitude that were due to him becomes abundantly obvious and in the estimation
;

of every conscience, nothing could exceed the tur-

pitude of him,

who should

regale himself on the

bounties wherewith he had been enriched, and yet Yet pass unheedingly by the giver of them all.

him,

does not a proportion of this very guilt rest upon who knows not the hand that relieved him, yet
cares not to inquire ?
It

does not exonerate him

from the burden of all obligation that he knows not He incurs a guilt, the hand w^hich sustains him. It is enough to convict if he do not want to know. him of a great moral delinquency, if he have gladly seized upon the liberalities which were brought in
secret to his door, yet seeks not after the quarter

whence they have come

willing
upon

that the

hand of

the dispenser should remain for ever unknown, and not wanting any such disclosures as v/ould lay a
distinct claim or obligation

himself.
;

He

alto-

gether lives by the bounty of another

yet would

rather continue to live without the burden of those

60
services or

ON THE BEING OF

GOD.

acknowledgments that are due to him His ignorance of the benefactor might alleviate the
;

charge of ingratitude charge again,

if

but

it

plainly

awakens the
in ignorance,

he choose to remain
still

and would shun the information that might dispel

it.

In reference then to this

it is

undiscovered

patron of his family,

ingratitude; to
that
is

possible for

him

to evince

make full exhibition of a nature unmoved by kindness and withholds the

moral responses which are due to it, that can riot with utmost selfishness and satisfaction upon the gifts while in total indifference about the giver an indiiFerence which might be quite as clearly and characteristically shown, by the man who seeks not

after his

unknown

friend, as

by the man who sUghts

admits of deof total uncer-

him

after that

he has found him.

12.

grees.

And further this ingratitude It may exist even in a state

of it;

tainty as to the object

and without the

smallest clue to the discovery of him.

But should

some such clue be put

the

into his hand,

it

prosecution
'

of

this

and he forbear would enhance the

ingratitude.

ness

if

were an aggravation of his basethere cast up some opening to a discovery,

It

and he declined to follow it if the probability fell in his way that might have guided him to the unseen hand which had been stretched forth in his behalf, and he shut his eyes against it if he, satisfied with the bounty, were not merely content to live without

the slightest notice of the benefactor, but lived in

utter disregard of every notice that transpired

the subject
light

loving

upon

the darkness rather than the

upon

this question;

and better pleased to

ON THE BEING OF

A GOD.

61

grovel in the enjoyment of the gifts without the

he most palpable dehnquency of spirit in all this; and it would become still more evident, should he distinctly refuse the calls that were brought within The grateful his hearing to prosecute an inquiry. man would not do this. He would be restless under the ignorance of him to whom he owed the He would feel the preservation of his family. uneasiness of a heart whose most urgent desire was
rather wills to abide in secrecy.

burden of any gratitude to that giver

whom
is

There

left

without

its

object.

It is thus that anterior to

the knowledge of the giver, and far anterior to the

full certainty of

him

the

moralities which spring

from the obligation of

play.

might come into Even in this early stage, there is, in reference to him who is yet unknown, a right and a wrong and there might be evinced either the
his gifts

worth of a grateful
the guilt of
penalties
its

disposition, or there

be incurred
of

opposite.

Under a

discipline

and rewards for the encouragement of virtue, one man might be honoured for the becoming sensibilities of his heart to one whom he never saw; and another be held responsible for his conduct to him of v/hom he utterly was ignorant. 13. It may thus be made to appear, that there is an ethics connected with theology, which may come into play, anterior to the clear view of any More especially, we do not need of its objects. to be sure of God, ere we ought to have certain
feehngs, or
at least certain
this purp^^se

aspirations

towards

him.

For

we do

not need, fully and

is.

absolutely to believ

that

God

It is

enough

68

ON THE BEING OF

A GOD.

and absolutely acquiesce not. To be fit subjects for our present argument, we do not need to have explored that territory of nature which is within and thence gathered, in the traces of a oiir reach designer's hand the positive conclusion that there is a God. It is enough if we have not tra^^ersed, throughout all its directions and in all its extent, the sphere of immensity ; and if we have not scaled
that our minds cannot fully
in the position that

God

is

the mysterious altitudes of the eternity that

is

past

nor, after having there searched for a divinity in

have come at length to the positive and the peremptory conclusion, that there is not a God. In a w^ord, it is quite enough that man is barely a finite creature, who has not yet put forth his faculties on the question whether God is neither has yet so ranged over all space and all tim.e, as definitely to have ascertained that God is not but with whom though in ignorance of all proof, it still remains a possibihty that God may be.
vain,
;

14.

Now

to this condition there attaches a

It is to

most
quest

clear

and incumbent morality. of that unseen benefactor, who

go

in

has ushered
rious a
secret of
to

me

into existence,

panorama around me.

for aught I know, and spread so gloIt is to probe the

;

my

being and

my birth
it

and,

if

possible,

make

discovery whether

was indeed the hand

of a benefactor, that brought

me

forth

chambers of nonentity, and gave

lighted
living

me

place

entertainment in that glowing territory,

from the and which is

up with the hopes and the happiness ot men. It is thus that the very conception ot a God throws a responsibility after it ; and that

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

69

duty, solemn and imperative duty, stands associated

with the thought of a possible deity, as well as with the sight of a present deity, standing in full mani-

knowledge embryo, there is both a path of irreligion and a path of and that law which denounces the one and piety gives to the other an approving testimony, may find in him who is still in utter darkness about his
festation before us.
all

Even anterior to

of

God, or when that knowledge

;

is

in

and his end, a fit subject for the retributions He cannot be said to have which she deals in. borne disregard to the will of that God, whom he
origin

has found.

But

his

is

the guilt of impiety, in that

he has borne disregard to the knowledge of that God, whom he was bound by every tie of gratitude
to seek after

duty not founded on the proofs

that

may be

exhibited for the being of a God, but

a duty to which even the most slight and slender of presumptions should give rise. And wha can deny
that,

antecedent to

all

close

of the proofs, there are at least

in behalf of a

and careful examination many presumptions

God, to meet the eye of every obserany so hardy as to deny, that the curious workmanship of his frame jnay have had a designer and an architect that the ten thousand independent circumstances which must be united ere he can have a moment's ease, and the failure of any one of which would be agony, may not have met at random, but that there may be a skilful and unseen hand to have put them together into one wondrous concurrence, and that never ceases to uphold it ; that there may be a real and a living artist, whose fingers did frame the economy of actual
ver ?
Is there
;

70
things,

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

and who hath so marvellously suited all that around us to our senses and our powers of gratification ? Without affirming aught which is positive,
is

we breathe, and the beautiful which we expatiate, these elements of sight and sound so exquisitely fitted to the organs of the human frame-work, may have been provided by one
surely the air that
light in

who

did benevolently consult in them our special accommodation. The graces innumerable that lie widely spread over the face of our worlds the glorious concave of heaven that
is-

placed over us, the

grateful variety of seasons that like Nature's shifting

panorama ever brings new entertainment and deUght to the eye t)f spectators these may, for aught we know, be the emanations of a creative mind, that originated our family and devised such a universe for their habitation. Regarding these, not as proofs, but in the humble light of presumptions for a God, i\\Qj are truly enough to convict us of foulest

ingratitude

if

we go

not forth in quest of a yet

unknown, but

at least possible or likely benefactor..

They may

not resolve the question of a God.

But

they bring the heaviest reproach on our listlessness to the question; and show that, anterior to our

assured belief in his existence, there lies upon us a most imperious obUgation to '' stir ourselves up that we may lay hold of Him." 15. Such presumptions as these, if not so many demands on the belief of man, are at least so many demands upon his attention ; and then, for aught he knows, the presumptions on which he ought to inquire, may be more- and more enhanced, till they brighten into proofs which ought to convince him.

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

71

ThQ prima facie evidence for a God may not be enough to decide the question; but it should at 1o least decide man to entertain the question.
think upon

how

slight

a variation either in

man

or

in external nature, the whole diiierence between physical enjoyment and the most acute and most appalling of physical agony may turn ; to think how delicate the balance is, and yet how surely and

steadfastly

it

is

maintained,

so as that the vast

majority of creatures are not only upheld in

fort

com-

seen disporting themselves in the redundance of gaiety to think of the pleasurable sensations wherewith every hour is enlivened, and how much the most frequent and familiar occa-

but often

may be

sions of

life are mixed up with happiness ; to think of the food, and the recreation, and the study, and

the society, and the business, each having an appropriate rehsh of

own, so as in fact to season with enjoyment the great bulk of our existence in the world ; to thmk that, instead of living in the midst of grievous and incessant annoyance to all our
its

faculties,

should have awoke upon a world that so harmonized with the various senses of man, and

we

both gave forth such music to his ear, and to his

eye such manifold lovelir ^ to think of all these palpable and most precious auaptations, and yet to care not, whether in this wide universe there exists
:

a being who has had any hand in them to riot and regale oneself to the uttermost in the midst of all this profusion, and yet to send not one wishful inquiry after that Benevolence which for aught wo
;

know may have

laid it at

our feetthis, however

shaded from our view the object of the question

72

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

be,
is,

may
of

from

its

very commencement, a clear

If that veil

outrage against

its

ethical proprieties.

dim transparency, which hides the Deity from our immediate perceptions, were lifted up and we
;

should then spurn from us the manifested

this

God

were direct and glaring impiety. But anterior may be impiety. It is impiety to be so immersed as we are, in the busy objects and gratifications of life and yet to care not whether there be a great and a good spirit by whose kindness it is that life is upholden. It needs not that this great spirit should reveal Himself in
to the hfting of that veil, there
;

characters that force our attention to

guilt of our impiety has

begun.

Him, ere the But ours is the

guilt of impiety, in not hfting our attention towards

God, Him.
16.

in not seeking after

Him if haply we may find

if

Man

is

not to blame,
proof.

an
is

atheist,

because

of the

atheist,

an because he has shut his eyes. He is not to blame, that the evidence for a God has not been seen by him, if no such evidence there were within
to blame, if

want of

But he

the field of his observation.

But he

is

to blame, if

the evidence have not been seen, because he turned

away
do,
is

his attention
lie

from

it.

That the question

all

of

God may

unresolved in his mind,

he has

to

to refuse

a hearing to the question.

He may

abide without the conviction of a God, if he so choose. But this his choice is matter of condemnation.

To

resist

criminaHty towards

God after that He is known, is Him but to be satisfied that

;

He

should remain unknown,

is

like

criminality

towards Him.

There

is

a moral perversity of


ON THE BEING OF A GOD.
Spirit

73

with him

who

is

wilUng, in the midst of

many

objects of gratification,

that there should not be

It is

one object of gratitude.

the ignorance of

thus that, even in

responsibility

God, there may be a

towards God.

The Discerner

of the heart sees,

whether, for the blessings innumerable wherewith

He

has strewed the path of every man,

He

be

treated, like the

gently sought,

unknown benefactor who was dilior like the unknown benefactor who

was never cared for. In respect, at least of desire God, the same distinction of character may be observed between one man and another whether God be wrapt in mystery, or stand forth in fuU. development to our world. E\ en though a mantle of deepest obscurity lay over the question of His existence this would not efface the distinction, between the piety on the one hand w^hich laboured and aspired after Him and the impiety upon the
after

other which never missed the evidence that

it

did

and so grovelled in the midst of its own sensuality and selfishness. The eye of a heavenly witness is upon all these varieties and thus, w^hether it be darkness or whether it be dislike which hath caused a people to be ignorant of God, there is vrith him a clear principle of judgment, that He can extend even to the outfields of atheism. 17. It would appear then, that, however shaded from the view of man are the objects of Theology, as in virtue of his moral nature he can feel and recognise in some degree the ethics of Theology even in this initial state of his mind on the question of a God, there is an impellent force upon the conscience, which he ought to obey, and which he
not care
for,
;

VOL.

I.

7-1

OISi

THE BEISG OF A GOD.

We do not speak of tliat jght which irradiates the termination of the inquirer's path, but of that embryo or rudiraental light which ghmmers over the outset of- it ; whicli
incurs guilt by resisting.

serves at least to indicate the

commencement

of

liis

way and which,

;

for

aught he knows,

may brighten,
and

as he advances onwards, to the blaze of a full

finished revelation.

At no

point of this progress,

does

*'

the trumpet give an uncertain sound," exif

tending,

not to those

antitheism,

(which
trust

who stand on the ground of we have already pronounced

upon and we

proved to be madly irrational) vvho stand on the ground of atheism, who, though strangers to the conviction,
at least to those

are certainly not strangers to the conception of a

utmost practical importance, beyond the jurisdiction of an ob\^ous principle and that a right obligatory call can be addressed to men so far back on the domain of irreligion and ignorance. It is deeply interesting to know, by what sort of moral force, even an atheist ought to be evoked fi-om the fastness which he occupies vvhat are the notices, by responding to which, he should come forth with open eyes and a willing mind to this high investiDeity.
It is of the

that even these are not

;

gation

and by

resisting which,

he

will incur

demerit, whereof a clear moral cognizance might

be taken, and whereon a righteous moral condemnation might be passed. The "fishers of men'* should know the uttermost reach of their argument; and it is well to understand of religion, that, if she have truth and authority at all, there is a voice proceeding fi'om her which might be universally

0^'

THE

i3ElNG OF A GOD.

75

heard
if

so that even the remotest families of earth, not reclaimed by her, are thereby laid under sentence of righteous reprobation.
18.

On

this

doctrine of the moral dynamics,

in force,

which operate and are

he grounded
19.

even

in

our state of

profoundest ignorance respecting God, there

three important applications.
first
is

may
the

The
fit

that

all

men, under

all

possible varieties of illumination,

may

nevertheless

be the

subjects for a judicial cognizance

inso-

much

that

when admitted

to the universal account,

the Discerner of the heart will be at no loss for a

principle

on which they

all

might be reckoned with

corresponding to a very dim perception of the objects of religion, there might still be as much
as,

in operation of the ethics of religion as

distinct responsibility

might lay a

even on the most wild and Within the whole untutored of nature's children. compass of the human family there exists not one

outcast tribe that might not be

made

the subjects

of a moral reckoning at the bar of heaven's jurisprudence even though no light from the upper sanctuary hath ever shone upon them; and neither hath any light of science or of civihzation sprung up

themselves. In each untutored bosom there do exist the elements of a moral nature and the peculiar character of each could be seen from the way in which it responded to the manifestation of a And though only visited by the thought Deity.

among

or the suspicion of a Deity, the same thing

still

could be seen from the

which these children Each would give of nature were affected by it. and, in the thought his own entertainment to the
in
;

way

76

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

longings of a vague and undefined earnestness that

arose to heaven from the soHtary wild, might there be evinced as strong an affinity for God and for godliness, as in those praises of an enlightened
gratitude that ascend from the temples of Christen-

dom.

It is thus that the

Searcher of the inner

all

man will

find out data for a

reckoning among

the

tribes of this world's population

and that nowhere

coming

on the face of our globe doth

spiritual light glim.mer

so feebly as not to supply the materials of a

judgment on one and

20. It
is

all

of the

human

family.

thus that even to the most remote and

unlettered tribes,
jects for

men

are everywhere the

fit

sub-

Their belief, scanty though it be, hath a correspondent moraUty which they may either observe or be deficient in, and so They have few of be reckoned with accordingly.
a judgment-day.
the facts in Theology
;

and these may be seen too

through the hazy medium of a dull and imperfect evidence, or perhaps have only been shadowed out Theu* to them by the power of imagination.
theology

may have

arisen no higher than to the

passing suggestion of a

God

mere surmise or
v/ho, tending

rumination about an unseen

all

spirit,

their footsteps,

was
all

then* guardian

and

their

guide through the dangers of the pathless wilderness,

who

provides

the sustenance which

tliis

earth can supply, and hath lighted up these heavens

in all then- glory.

Now

in this thought, fugitive

though

it

be, in these uncertain glimpses whether

of a truth or of a possibility, there is that, to which the elements of their moral nature might respond so that to them, there is not the same

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

exemption from
granted to the
all

77
will

responsibility,
is

which

be

man who

sunk

in hopeless idiotism,

or to the infant of a day old.

Even with

the scanty

materials of a heathen creed, a pure or a perverse

morality might be grounded thereupon

hi those longings of a

whether,

vague and undefined earnestness that arise from him who feels in his bosom an affinity for God and godliness or, in the heedlessness of him, who, careless of an unknown benefactor, would have been alike careless, although He had stood revealed to his gaze, with as much light and evidence as is to be had in Christendom.
;

These

differences attest

dark economy of Paganism

Avhat he
full

would

be,

what man is, under the and so give token to under the bright economy of a
;

and finished revelation.

It is

thus that the

Searcher of the heart will find out data for a reckoning, even among the rudest of nature's
children, or among ghmmers most feebly
it
it

those
^for

be,

it

afibrds a test to

visits

whether
from
his

whose spiritual light and feeble though the character of him whom
faint
its
is

facility

he dismiss mind, or
of

suggestions with
arrested

thereby
the

into

a grateful sense

reverence.

Even

simple theology of the desert can supply the materials

of a coming judgment

so
tell

that the Discerner of

the inner man, able to

acts

who

it

is

that morally

and morally

feels

up

to the light

he has, or up

to the objects that lie within his contemplation, will

be at no less for a principle, on which He might clearly and righteously try all the men of all the generations that be upon the face of the earth.
21
.

We

read in the Epistle to the

Romans

of a

78

ON THE ?F/NC OF A

CrOD.

day when God shall judge the secrets of men both of the Jews who shall be judged by the written law, and of the Gentiles who have the work of the law written in their hearts, and are a law to themWe may now perhaps comprehend more selves.
distinctly

how
more

this

that the

clearly

may be. Though we know God,

it

be true

the
lie

closely does the obligation of godliness

more upon us

yet
is

there might be none so removed from the knowledge of God as to stand released from all obligation. There is the sense of a Divinity in every mind; and correspondent to that sense, there

a morality that
varieties

is

either complied with

will or rebelled against

so that under
The heavenly

by the

all

the possi-

ble

of illumination

and doctrine which

there

obtain in

various

countries of the world,

might be exemplified either a religiousness or an

impiety of character.
is

witness

who

on high can discern

in every instance

whether

to the conception of a great invisible

floats indistinctly in

many a bosom, but

power that is nowhere

wholly obliterated, there be such duteous regards

of the heart or such duteous conformities of the
life

as

tion can

morahty would dictate, and out of this quesbe gathered materials for a cognizance and
all.

a reckoning with

The Searcher

of hearts

knows how to found a clear and righteous judgment even on those moral phenomena that are given forth by men in the regions of grossest
heathenism
fall lightest

though the condemnation will where the ignorance has been most profound, and at the same time involuntary; yet none

and

we

think of our species are so deeply

imm >rsed

in

ON THE BEING OF

A OOD.

'

7.9

blindness or fatuity about Ciod, as that he might not be sisted at the bar of heaven's jurisprudence,

and there meet with a clear principle of condemnation to rest upon him.
22.
ciple
is

The
is

second important bearing of this prin-

on the subject of religious education.

true of a savage
is

For
It

what

true of a child.

may
itself

rightly feel the ethics of the relation

between
its

and God, before

light.

it

rationally apprehends the

Its

object of this relation.

moral

may outrun

argumentative
bility of

Long

anterior to the possito the character

any sound conviction as

or existence of a God, it may respond with sound and correct feeling to the mere conception of Him..

We

hold, that,

on

this principle,

the practice of

early,

nay even of infantine rehgious education, may, in opposition to the invectives of Rousseau and others, be fully and philosophically vindicated. Even though the object should be iUusory, still on
this low supposition there is no moral deterioration incurred but the contrary by an education which
calls forth a right exercise of the heart,

even to an

imaginary being.

But should

the object be real,

then the advantage of that anticipative process by which it is addressed to the conception of the 3.oung, before it can be intelligently recognised by
them,
is,

that though

it

do not at once enlighten

them on the question of a God, it at least awakens Though they are not yet them to the question.
capable of appreciating the proofs which decide the question, it is a great matter, that, long before they have come to this they can feel the moral propriety of giving
it

solemn and respectfid entertain-

80
ment.

ON THE BEING OF

A GOD,

Anterior to a well-grounded belief in the

is

objects of religion, there

religious scholarship,

a preparatory season of

commencing with childhood

and reaching onward through successive stages in a very early and useful season of aspirations and inquiries prompted by a sense of duty even to the yet unknown God. Here it is, that the ethics of our science and the objects of our science stand most noticeably out from each
the growth of intellect

other

for,

at the very time that the objects are

is

unknown, there
spirit,

an impellent force upon the

of a clear ethical dictate, enjoining us to

acquire the knowledge of them.

23. And this early education can be vindicated not only on the score of principle, but also on the

score of effect.
not,
it

Whether

it

properly illuminates or

at least prepares for those brighter

means of

illumination which are competent to a higher state

of the understanding.
vince,
it

If

it

do not rationally con-

at least provides a responsibility,

though

not a security for that attention which goes before

such a conviction.
process
;

It

does not consummate the

the preliminary steps ot
in

but, in as far as the moral precedes the

intellectual,

the process

^insomuch

it

makes good

that,

every Christian

land, the youth

for their belief,

and the manhood are accountable

because accountable for their use or

by which the beliei ought to have been determined. There is no individual so utterly a stranger to the name and the
their neglect of that inquiry,

conception of a Divinity as to be without the scope

of this obligation.

They have

fancy heard of God.

Many

all from their inhave been trained Ic

ON THE BEING OF a GOD

tliink of

81

reverence.

Him, amidst a thousand Some, under a roof

associations of
of piety,

have

often hsped the prayers of early childhood to this

unseen Being; and, in the oft repeated sound of morning and evening orisons, they have become Even they who have grown familiar to His name. up at random through the years of a neglected
boyhood, are greatly within the limits of that responThey have at least sibility for which we plead.
the impression of a God.
is

When

utterance of

Him

made

in their hearing, they are not startled as if

by the utterance

of a thing unnoticed
if

and unknown.

They

are fully possessed,

not with the certainty,

at least with the idea, of a great eternal Sovereign

whose kingdom
all its

is

the universe, and on whose will

processes are suspended.

Whosoever may

have escaped from the full and practical belief of such a Being, he most assuredly hath not escaped The very imprecafrom the conception of Him. tions of profaneness may have taught it to him. The very Sabbaths he spends in riot and blasphemy
at least

remind him of a God.

The

worship-bell
if

of the church he never enters, conveys to him,

not the truth at least an imagination of the truth. In all these ways and in many more beside, there
js

the sense of a

God upon

his spirit

a power
nis

of evidence hath not

and if such been forced upon

have been given,

understanding as to compel the assurance that

is

God

at least such intimations

that he cannot possibly

thought that
this

make his escape from the In spite of himself a God may be.
if
it it

thought will overtake him, and

do not

arrest

him by a sense

of obligation,

will leave

D 2

fe2

ON THE BEING OF
upon
his soul.
it

A GOD.

guilt

hever, hut
in this

of sin

It might not make him a heought to make him an inquirer and indifference of his there is the very essence though it he against a God who is unknown.

24.

And,

thirdly,

we may

thus learn to appre-

on which the irreligious of all classes in society would fain extenuate their heedlessness from the homely peasant who alleges his want of
ciate the plea

scholarship, to the gay and dissipated voluptuary who, trenched in voluntary darkness, holds himself to be without the pale of a reckoning, because he

demands a higher evidence for religion than has ever yet shone upon his understanding. This
antecedency of the ethics, not to the conception,

but at least to the belief of the objects, places

them

all

within the jurisdiction of a principle

the

and dangel* in its train. Instead of waiting till the light of an overpowering manifestation shall descend upon their spirits, it is their part to lift up their attention to the light which is offered. It will not exempt them from blame that they have never found the truth which would have saved them if their own consciences can tell that in good earnest they have never sought it. Their heedlessness about an unknow^n though possible God, is just the moral
violation of
guilt

which brings

perversity that

w ould make them

fully ascertained

heedless of a

who had been

settled

and,

God

rudely un-

though they may deem their Theology to

to

be,

it

may be enough

make them

responsible for

and if they want this seriousness, enough to convict them of most glaring impiety. This principle tells even at the
;

deepest seriousness about

God

THE BEING OF

GOD.

83

outset of a minster's dealings with the most rustic

(congregations
;

and,

all

ignorant as they
is

may be

of

the proofs by which religion

is still

substantiated, there

pression of probabiUty, as

even in their untutored minds such an imif not sufficient to decide

should at least

the

question,

summon

all
it.

their

faculties to the respectful entertainment of

25. We may thus perceive what that is, on which a teacher of religion finds an introduction for his topic, even into the minds of people in the lowest state both of moral and intellectual debaseThey m^ay have not that in them, at the ment.

outset of his ministrations, v/hich can enable

to decide the question of a
least

them

God

but they have at

that in them,
it.

attention to

of the divinity,

whic-h should summon their They have at least such a sense as their own consciences vvill tell,

should put them on the regards and the inquiries

of moral earnestness.

This

is

a clear principle

which operates at

the.

very commencement of a

religious course; and causes the first transition, from the darkness, and insensibility of ahenated nature, to the feelings and attentions of seriousness. The truth is, that there is a certain rudimental theology every where, on which the lessons of a higher theology may be grafted as much as to condemn, if not to aw aken the apathy of nature. AVliat we have alreadt^ said of the relation in which the father of a starving household stands to the giver of an anonymous donation, holds true of the relation in which all men stand to the unseen or

"

anonymous God.
darkness, and

Though in a state of absolute without one token or clue to a

84

ON THE BEING OF
is room among men

A GOD.

discovery, there
differences

for the exhibition of

^ibr

moral

even then,

all

the ele-

ments of morality might be at v/ork, and all the tests of moral propriety might be abmidantly veriand still more, after that certain likehhoods fied had arisen, or some hopeful opening had occurred for investigating the secret of a God, There is the utmost moral difference that can be imagined between the man who Avould gaze with intense scrutiny upon these likelihoods, and the man who either in heedlessness or aversion would turn hivS eyes from them; between the man who would seize upon such an opening and prosecute such an investigation to the uttermost, and the man who either retires or shrinks from the opportunity of a disclosure, that might burden him both with the sense and with the services of some mighty
;

obligation.

26.

And

the same moral force which begins this

inquiry, also continues

and sustains
a

it.

If there
to create

be power

in the very conception of

God

and constitute the duty of seeking after Him, this power grows and gathers with every footstep of advancement in the high investigation. If the
thought of a merely possible deity have rightfully

awakened a sense
tain the question;

of obligation within us to enter-

the view of a probable deity

and*make the claim upon more urgent and imperative than at the first. Every new likelihood makes the call louder, and the challenge more incumbently bindthis feehng,

must enhance
our attention

still

ing than before.

In proportion to the light

we

had attained, would be the criminality of resisting

ON THE BEING OF

A GOD.

85

any further notices or manifestations of that mightyBeing with whom we had so nearly and so emUnder the impulse of a right phatically to do.
should follow on to know God till, done full justice both to our opportunities and our powers, we had made the most of all the available evidence that was within our reach,
principle,

we

after having

and possessed ourselves of was accessible.

27.

all

the knowledge that

But we

shall

expatiate no longer on the

this principle

popular and practical applications of

--all

important though they be

advert to the distinction

and will only now between the ethics and

;

the objects of Theology, for the purpose of eluci-

dating by a very obvious analogy the relation in

which the Natural and the Christian Theology stand to each other. 28. And first, it is obvious that in virtue of our moral nature, such as it is, the^e might be a feehng of certain moral proprieties as appendant to certain relations between man and m.an without any recogThough the world nition by the mind of God.
be transported beyond the limits of the though the Supreme v/ere now to stamp a perpetuity upon its present laws both of physical and mental nature, and then to abandon it

were

to

divine

economy

for ever

though He
and

were

to consign

it

to

some

distant

solitary place in a reign of atheism,

only leaving untouched the outward accommodations

by which man is now surrounded, and the internal mechanism which he carries in his bosom ^let there

be no difference but one, namely, that all sense of a ruling Divinity were expunged, but that with this


8G
exception
tion

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

all the processes of thought and hnagma and feelmg went on upon their old principles still would there be a morality among men, a recognition of the difference between right and wrong, just as distinct and decided as a recognition of the difference between beauty and deformity. There would be nought in such a translation of the human family to this new state that could break up the alliance between a view of loveliness in scenery, and the tasteful admiration of it or bet\ipen a view of integrity in character and the approval of its worth or its rectitude. By the supposition that we now make, the taste is left entire and it has only to be presented with the same objects that it may be similarly afiected as before. And by the same supposition the moral nature is left entire and it has only to be presented with the appropriate objects, that it may respond to them as it did before, and come forth wiUli its wonted evolutions. The single difference is, that one object is withdrawn, that God henceforth is unheeded and unknown,

that he

is

never present to the eye of the mind so

as to call forth from the heart a sense of corre-

sponding duteousness.
of all thought

But
all

still

in the utter absence

knowledge about God, there are other objects whereon with the human constitution unchanged the moral feeling and the moral faculty would find their appropriate exercise. There would still be the reciprocations of morahty among men the same relationship as before between injury and a sense of displeasure between beneficence and a sense of gratitude between a

and of

consciousness of guilt, towards a neighbour,

if

not

ON THE BEING OF
towards God, between
this

A GOD.

87

the exposure pain of self-dissatisfaction one hand the upon baseness or villany of human

^between

consciousness and the

and the outcries of pubUc execration on the other. The voice of the inward monitor would still be The voice of society whether in applause heard. Men would or condemnation would still be heard.
still

The whole system

main

continue to accuse or else to excuse each other. of our jurisprudence might re-

and superadded to it, there as at present w^ould be a court of conscience and a court of public
opinion,

by which, even
all

after the

world had been

desolated of

sense of God, a natural regimen of

still be upholden. retain his geometrical mathematician 29. Let a and though he entire perceptions and powers

morality might

should become an atheist, he will still apprehend a question of equality between one line and another. And let any one retain his moral powers and perceptions entire
athe.ist,
;

and though he should become an

he will still apprehend a question of equity Atheism does not between one man and another. hinder the resentment which he feels upon a provocation
bility
;

neither does

it

hinder the instinctive sensi;

which he

feels at the sight of distress

neither

does it hinder the quick and lively approval wherewith he regards an exhibition of virtue ; nor yet the recoil of his adverse moral judgment with all its emotions of antipathy

violence.

Though utterly broken

still

there would
action
right,

from some scene of perfidy or of loose from heaven, be the same play of action and re-

upon

earth.

Both the

obligation of a legal

and the approbation of a moral rightness

88

ON THE BEING OF
to

A GOD.
as in the

would continue
of a man's

be

felt

and

chamber

own

heart there would be a remorse

upon the back

voice
of

of iniquity as before,

tribunal of society there

and from the would descend upon it a

rebuke as before the obligations of morality would still have a meaning; and apart from the thought of God, there would be a sense as well as an understanding of moral obligation. 30. With the access which the geometrician hajs at present to the orbs and the movements which be

on high

^liis

mathematics do avail him for the com

putations of a sublime astronomy.

Let

this access

be barred
tances.

and

still

his

mathematics would avail

access

and diswhich either peasant or philosopher has to the knowledge of God, his morals do avail for pointing out the incumbent latitude and the incumbent obedience. Let

him as before

for all terrestrial positions

And

so

wdth the

this access

be somehow intercepted,

let the face of

the Divinity be mantled in thickest darkness, inso-

much that the very conception of Him were banished

from our world; and
still

would there remain a

sublunary morals that would take cognizance of the sublunary relationships as before. The astronomer
in the

one case might sink down into a landed sur-

veyor.

The

aspiring candidate for heaven, in the

other case, might sink earth

down

into a

mere

citizen of

yet there would be a surviving mathematics

The distinction beand also a surviving morals. tween the right and the wrong would no more be obliterated by such an interception of our view towards the upper sanctuary, than the distinction between the east and the west would be cancelled

ON THE BEING OF
by the destruction
pearance of
all its

A GOD.

89

of the telescope,

and the disapwondrous revelations from the

memory

of our species.
still

The

earth that

we

tread

upon would
as
it

continue to be a platform for the

and Greece and Rome, the period of a distorted theology, so would it be now ^virtue in the period of an utterly extinct theology w^ould be felt in its rightness, and also be felt in the
display and exercise of the moral proprieties

was

in the age of

obligation of
31.

it.

When

Sir Isaac

Newton was

first

made

to

had not an know he might learn that to mathematics essentially new only The movements. their law of the evolve novelty lay in the facts, and not in the principles The geomethat he brought to bear upon them.
of the Satellites of Jupiter, he

try which guided

him along these celestial orbs was the very same by which he traced the path of a projectile on the surface of our own planet and
;

to obtain a just estimate of those

mazy heavens

that

now were opened

to his view,

transfer the. mathematics which

he had only to he before had to

another set of data.

And

it is

the very

same with

the revelations of a higher moral, as with those of It is a revelation not a higher physical economy.

but of new objects addressed to The very ethics that had been long in frequent and familiar exercise about the things within onr knowledge, are available for
of

new

principles,

our old principles.

such things as are now offered for the first time to our contemplation even though our eye had not before seen, nor our ear heard, nor yet it had ever Th3 entered into our hearts to conceive of them.

8*

90

ON THE BEING OF

GOD.

very ethics that dictate our gratitude to an earthly

benefactor, dictate also the transcending gratitude,

the subiimer devotion that

tor

we owe

to the benefac-

on highjust as the arithmetic which assigns the units of an earthly, is the same with that which assigns the millions of a distance
sitteth

who

that

is

heavenly.

It is thus that the revelations

meet with a law already written in the hearts of men upon earth and so in the whole morality of that relationship which subsists between men and their Maker, do we meet with
of heaven

analogies to the morality of

men who

live

without

God

in the world.

32. Thus there is a natural philosophy which, when conversant with earthly objects alone, may

be denominated the Science of Terrestrial Physics. And in like manner there is a moral philosophy which, when conversant with earthly objects alone,
as with the various beings

who occupy

this globe,

may be denominated
Ethics.
33.

the

Science of Terrestrial
of man's

But even within the cognizance

eye,

natural

there

are

heavenly objects

paths and movements can be traced by him

so be
tion

whose and
;

made

the subject of mathematical descrip-

and mathematical reasoning.

When

he

lifts

himself to the contemplation of them, he enters on

the confines of a science distinct from the former,

thouah comprehended with title of Natural Philosoph}-

it

even

under the ofeneral what may be

In as

called the science of the Celestial Physics.

far as he prosecutes this science without the a'd of

instruments fcr

tlie

eiilarfremont of bis vision,

lie


ON THE BEING OF
A GOD.

91

may be said to study the lessons of natural astroThere was such an astronomy prior to nomy. and even still, the the invention of the telescope limits could be assigned between those truths or
;

lie

doctrines of the whole science of astronomy which within the ken of the natural eye, and those

that He without the ken of the natural eye,

but

wdthin the ken of the telescope.

34.

And

so truly of moral philosophy.

Within

the natural eyesight of the mind, there

clearly perceived

may be

not

alone those objects of the

science which are placed immediately around us upon earth but there may also be perceived, though dimly and hazily we allow, one heavenly
;

object of the science.

The

light of nature reaches

more
tial

or less a certain w^ay into the region of celesethics;

which,

and so there is a natural theology however dull or imperfect the medium through which it is viewed, presents us with someThere is thing different from a total obscuration. a book of observation open to all men, in whose characters, indistinct though they be, we may read if not the signals at least the symptoms of a Diand which, if not enough for the purpose of vinity

our seeing, are at least enough to make us responsible for the direction in which v/e are looking.

The

doctrines of this natural theology

may

not

bear the decided impress of verities upon them so that as the conclusions of a full and settled But they at belief they may not be valuable.
least

stand forth in the aspect of verisimilitudes

that as calls to attention

so

quiry they are highly valuable.

and further hiThere was such


92

ON THE BEING OF

A GOD.

a theology prior to the Christian revelation and even still there is a real, though not perhaps
very definable limit betv.een those truths of the

whole science of theology which lie within the ken of nature, and those which lie without the ken of
nature, but within the ken of revelation.
35.

And

lastly, the

telescope hath immeasura-

bly extended the dominion of astronomical science.

Objects, though before within the limits of vision

yet descried but faintly, have had vivid illumination

and an innnensity teeming with been evolved on the contemplation of men. A world hath been expanded into a universe and natural astronomy shrinks into a very little thing, when compared with that mighty system which the great instrument of modern revelation hath unfolded. ^Miat an injustice to this noble science, on the part of one of its expounders did he limit himself to the information of the eye and forbear every allusion to the powers or informations of the telescope. What a creeping and inadequate representation could he bring forth of it, if with no other materials than the phenomena of vision, he was barred either by ignorance of the telescope, or by a wilful contempt for its performances, from the glories of
;

shed upon them

secrets before undiscoverable hath

the higher astronomy.

36. This

consummates the analogy.

By what

may be termed an

instrument of discovery too, a

spiritual telescope, the science of Theology has been extended beyond its natural dimensions. By the word of God, the things of Heaven have been brought nigh to us ; and the mysteries of an

ON THE BEING OE A GOD.

ulterior region, impalpable to the eye of

93

man, belight

cause utterly beyond

to his view.

its

reach, have been opened

It is that

boundary where the

of nature ends

and the

light of revelation begins,

which marks the separation between the respective* provinces of Moral Philosophy and the Christian
Theology.
Scripture we authenticate as
of the telescope.

In demonstrating the credentials of it were the informations

In expounding the contents of

Scripture

we

lay before

you the substance

the vast
to

of these

informations.

We

affirm

enlargement

which has thence accrued

the richness and the
science to

Theology; from both

of those places in the

number

which

man

has been thereby introduced,

and that otherwise would have been wholly inacessible. There are men who can glory in the discoveries of modern science, and feel contemptuously Yet so meagre of the gospel of Jesus Christ. truly is their academic theism, notwithstanding the

pomp

of its demonstrations

that

to suppress the
inflict

doctrines of the Gospel were to

the

same

mutilation on the high theme of the celestial ethics,

as astronomy

would undergo by suppressing the

informations of the telescope.

37.

We

should not have expatiated at such

length on this distinction between the Ethics and

had we not felt urged by the paramount importance of a principle which

the Objects of Theology

should be
standing.

made

as plain as
it is

may be

to every under-

And

this

that from the very em-

bryo of thought or feeling on the subject of religion, and in the rudest possible state of humanity, there is what may be caiJed a moving moral force on the

94
spirit of

ON THE BElIsG OP A GOD.

man

which,

if

he obey, m ill conduct him

to

onward through successive manifestations,

in his circumstances
religion
is
if

what

and

which

a right state of belief in he resist, will supply the

It
that, in

subject matter of his righteous condemnatiouc

no circumstances whatever, he is beyond the pale of Heaven's jurisprudence and that whether or not he have light for the full assurance of his understanding, he has light enough to try his disposition towards God both to prompt his desire towards Him, and give direction to his inquiries after him. Even on the
should be
;

made obvious

lowly platform of the Terrestrial Ethics this principle

comes

into operation
it

and

in virtue of

it,

every mind which feels as

it

ought, and aspires as

ought, will be at least set in motion and

the light which
is

come

to

all

within

its

reach.

"

He

that

doeth truth," says the Saviour, "cometh to the

light."
is rightly affected by the Ethics cometh to the Objects and thus an entrance is made on the field of the Celestial Ethics, and possession taken by the mind of at Natural Theology. But least one section of it and the ulterior or revealed after this is traversed Theology has come into prospect, we hold that the same impulse which carried him onwards to the first will carry him on^\urds to the second. We shall therefore resume the consideration of this principle after that we have ended our exposition And next of the natural or the academic theism.

He

that

of the question,

in importance to the question

"

What
is

are those

conclusive proofs on the side of make it our duty to believe ?"

Religion which
the question

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

" What are those
it

95

hiitial

presumptions which make

our duty to inquire ?"

38.
It is impossible to say

how much
he

or

how

little

of evidence for a

God may

in these first

surmisings, these vague and shadowy imaginations

of the

mind respecting Him.

They

serve a great

moral purpose notwithstanding tertained and followed out by

fasten

whether when enman

they act as an
resisted they

impellent to further inquiry, or

when

upon him the condemnation of impiety. An argument for the existence of a Divinity has been grounded on the fact of such being the universal
impression.

We may

not be able

precisely to

estimate the argument;

but

this affects

not the

import^r.-^e of the fact itself, as being a thing of

mighty subservience
ministration
of all

to the objects of a

Divine ad-

^bringing a moral
all

force on the spirits

men, and so bringing

within the scope of

This applies indeed to the a judicial reckoning. It may be of whole system of Natural Theology.
invaluable service, even though
it fall

short of con-

vincing us.

We may

never thoroughly entertain

the precise weight or

this

amount

of

its

proofs.

But

does not hinder their actually being of a certain and substantive amount, whereupon follows a correin our resistance of

sponding amount or aggravation of moral unfairness them known to God though

be such as though it may not challenge our full and definite belief and whether Natural Theology has to offer such a proof
to ourselves.
if it

unknown

Enough

to challenge our serious attention,

on the side of

religion as enables us absolutely to

is

decide the question, yet high

the function which

U'O

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

if it

it

discharges

offer

such a precognition as lays

it.
*

upon us the duty

tural
it,

of farther entertaining

39. For, after having traversed the field of

Naall

Theology and come

will
is

to the ulterior

margin of
still

it

be found that though ignorant of

which

before us in Christianity, there will

be
its

the same moving force carrying us forward to

investigations, as that

which now makes

it

morally

imperative upon us to prosecute the inquiry after

God.
it

If it

be morally incumbent on us

now

to

follow out the faintest incipient notices of a Deity,

will

be equally incumbent on us then to follow out

if

the same notices of a profest,

at all a likely

mes-

senger from the sanctuary of His special dwellingplace.

Now

this is precisely

what we

shall

come

within sight

of,

after

having finished the lessons of

will

natural theism.

There

then be offered to our

observation a certain historical personage

at least such a creditable aspect

bearing
rejec-

and such verisimilitude of a divine commission, that we cannot without

violence to the ethical principles of the subject bid
it

away from our mind by an

act of

summary

tion.

In the revealed, as well as in the natural re2i prima facie evidence which, if not a claim on our belief, at least amounts

ligion, there is

amounting
to a claim

to

on our attention.

There may not

in-

stanter be put into our hands the materials of a

valid proof,

so as to challenge all at once

from

us a favourable verdict.

But there

will at least

be put into our hands the materials of a valid precognition so as to challenge from us a fair trial. It may not announce itself; and what question whether in science or in history ever does so ?

ON THE

liElNG OF A GOD.
itself

97

it may not announce

as worthy of our im-

announce itself as mediate conviction ; but it If there be not hearing. worthy of an immediate
will

so

much

at the very

first,

of the certainty of truth

;

there will at least be as shall compel us to receive as should compel truth of semblance the of much as And whether one us to Usten and to look after. looks to that expression of moral honesty which sits

on the character and sayings of Jesus Christ, or cast

a regard, however rapid and general, on the testimony and the sufferings and the apparent worth of those who followed in His train; and arter this
forbears a closer inquiry

^he

incurs the

same de-

linquency of

spirit

which we have

already charged

upon him who can step abroad with open eye among the glories of the creation, yet remain unmoved by
any desire of gratitude or even of curiosity to the
question of a Creator.
40. But there is one special advantage which we should not omit noticing in our study of the Natural It prior to our study of the Christian argument.

may
ward

not prepare us for justly estimating the outbut it will enable credentitils of the embassy

us to recognise other credentials in the very subAfter, in stance and contents of the embassy.
fact, that the

theology of the schools has done

its

uttermost,

it

but lands

.us in

certain desiderata

which,
to

if not met and not satisfied, leave nothing humanity but the utmost destitution and despair. But if, on the other hand, these desiderata are met by the counterpart doctrines of Chrisif the unresolved problems of the one tianity theology do find then solution and their adjust-

VOL.

I.

08
iiient in

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

the revelations of the other theology, one

cannot imagine a more inviting presumption in favour of Christianity a presumption which may at length brighten into an overwhelming proof;

and thus furnish conviction

a perfect stranger to
find
all

to a

man who, though

and history, enough of evidence struck out between his bible and his conscience to light him on his This is an internal evidence the rudipath. mental lessons of which we are in fact learning
erudition

may

w^hile

we study

the lessons of natural theology

system which, with all its defects, performs a very high prehminary function, seeing, that, by its

dim and dawning

is

probabilities,

if

not the obliga-

tion to believe, at least the obHgation to inquire,

most

rightfully laid

upon us

and, that out of

its

very imperfections, an effective argument

may be

drawn

in favour of that higher theology, in w^hose

promises and truths every imperfection of nature meets with its appropriate and all-sufficient remedy.
41. Whether, then,
at the

the one inquiry or of the other, let us enter

in the spirit so

commencement of upon it
introimus

admirably delineated by Seneca in

sentence
:

the following
compositi,
timus",
si
si

" Si

ad

saerificia accessuri

templa vultum submit-

in

omne argumentum

modesties fingi-

quanto hoc magis facere debemus, cum de sideribus, de stelUs, de natura deorum disputamus, nequid temere, nequid impudenter, aut ignorantes
;

mur

affirmemus, aut scientes mentiamur.'*

DR. CLAUKe's a priori ARGUMENT.

99

CHAPTER
Of the
of Theism.
DR. Clarke's a priori

III.

Metaphysics which have been resorted to on the side

argument on the being op a god.

1.

All

ment

of Dr. Clarke

have h#ard of the famous a priori arguan argument which Dr. Reid

does homage to as the speculation of superior

minds but whether it be as solid as it is sublime, he professes himsel#wholly unable to determine.* 2. On this subject Dr. Thomas Brown is greatly" I conceive," he tells us, " the more confident. abstract arguments which have been adduced to show that it is impossible for matter to have existed from eternity ^by reasoning on what has been termed necessary existence, and the incompatibility
;

of this

necessary existence with the qualities of

to

matter
as

be

relics of the

mere verbal

logic of the

schools, as little capable- of producing conviction

nical scholastic reasonings,

any of the wildest and most absurd of the techon the properties, or supposed properties, of entity and non-entity." 3. But let us not dismiss an argument, which so

deeply infused what

century, without

may be

called the Theistical

first

Literature of England for the

half of the last

some examination.

* " These," says Dr. Reid, "are the speculations of men of superior genius but whether they be solid as they are sublime, or whether they be the wanderings of imagination into a region beyond the limits of. the human understanding, I am unable to determine."

100
4.

DR. Clarke's a priori

argument.

What then we hold to be the first questionin the reasonings of Dr. Clarke, assumption able is that by which he appears to confound a physical with either a logical or mathematical necessity.

We

feel

no

difficulty in

conceding to him the neexistence

cessary existence of that which has existed from

eternity

and

that the necessity for

its

and not in any thing apart from That which has been created by someitself. thing else both came into being, and continues we may also admit to be, in virtue of a power that and it is to this power exoteric to is without it we have to look for#he ground both of itself that But the thing its first and its abiding existence. which has existed for ever must also have some ground on which it continues to be, rather than that it should not be, or go to annihilation; and this ground on which at present it continues to be, must be the same with the ground on which "it But if it continued to be at any past moment. never had a beginning this ground or principle of the existence must have been from everlasting present ground in fact, on which it continues to
resides in itself
;

exist,
its
all.

having abidden with

it

through the
it

\v4iole

of

past eternity as the ground on which

exists at

But
'fiat

as

we

are not to look for this ground in

the

of another
its

it

must be looked

for in the

necessity of

the necessity
5.

own nature it contains for its own existence.

is

within itself

Now what

the inference which Dr. Clarke

has drawn from

thin^

this necessity ?

The word
is

is

ap-

plied to speculative truths as well as to substantive

The

truth of a proposition

often neces-

DR. Clarke's a priori

sarily involved in the

argument.
it,

101

terms of

or in the defini-

tion of these

termsjust
a proposition

as the properties of a

circle lie surely

circle.

Nay

enveloped in the description of a may be so constructed

first

that the opposite thereof shall involve at

sight

a logical absurdity

so
It

that this opposite cannot

possibly be apprehended, or even imagined Dy the

mind.

Its truth
it.

is

necessarily

bound up

in tiie

very terms of

may be
itself,

said to contain its

own

evidence within

or rather to contain
its

within itself the necessity of

being admitted

among

the existent truths of Philosophy.

it

The

mind cannot, though

would, put

it

forth of its

own

belief

or, in

other words, put

it

forth of the

place which it occupies within the limits of necessary and universal truth. Now this test of a logical or mathematical necessity in the existent truths of speculation, he would make also the test of a physical necessity in the existent things of substantive

He confounds we think a and actual Nature. Insomuch logical with an actual impossibility. that if the conception of the non-existence of any actual thing involve in it no logical impossibility,
then that thing
applies the
is

not necessarily existent.

test to the things of

He
it is

same

which
they
things

alleged that they necessarily exist, as to the propositions

of v.'hich
true.

it

is

alleged
that

that
if

are

necessarily

He

holds

do

necessarily exist,

we cannot conceive this thing not to be just as when propositions have in them an axiomatic certainty, we cannot conceive these things And so on the other hand if we not to be true.

can conceive any existent thing not to be, then that

102

DR. Clarke's a priori argument.

It has thing exists but does not exist necessarily. not the ground of its existence in itself even as a necessary truth has its evidence or the ground of

its

trueness in
its

itself.

And

therefore the ground

of
It

must be in another beside itself. It must not have must have had a beginning
existence

existed from eternity.

^. It will be at once seen how when furnished with such an instrument of demonstration as this he could on the strength of a mere logical category, go forth on the whole of this peopled universe and

pronounce of all its matter and of all mind but the one and universal mind that they have been creWe can conceive them not to exist and ated. this without any of that violence which is felt by the mind, when one is asked to receive as true that w^hich carries some logical or mathematical contra" The only true idea," diction on the face of it.

he says, " of a
Being,
is

self-existent or necessarily existing

the idea of a Being the supposition of

whose not existing is an express contradiction." " But the material world," he afterwards says,
" cannot possibly be such a being" for " unless the material world exists necessarily, by an absolute necessity in its own nature, so as that it must be
it

an express contradiction to suppose it not to exist cannot be independent and of itself eternal."* This argument is reiterated in the following terms " 'Tis manifest the material world cannot exist
necessarily,

if

without a contradiction

we can con-

commas
Jjjjb

This and the other extracts from Clarke dven within inverted are quotations from his Demonstration of the Being- and Attributes of God.

DR. CLAUKE^S A PRIORI

ceive
it

ARGUMENT.

103

be in any respect otherproceeds all along on no necessity in the is there that assumption the
either not to be or to
it

wise than

now

is."

He

substantive existence of things, unless the denial of that existence involves a logical contradiction in

Nay, if without such contradiction we can imagine any variation in the modes or forms of matter from those which obtain actually, this is enough with him to expel from matter the proterms.

perty of self-existence.

matter
stars,

this property,

"

it

contradiction in terms to

Ere we can award to must," he says, " be a suppose more or fewer

it

more or fewer

planets, or to suppose their

size, figure, or
is,

motion, different from what

now

or to suppose

more or fewer plants and animals

upon the earth, or the present ones of different At shape and bigness from what they now are."
this rate, it will

be observed,

if

we can imagine
five

only

five

planets and without any such contradic-

tion as that three

is

and four make

this of itself

proof that the actual state of the planetary system,

or the a.ctual state of matter whereof this system,

is is

a part,

is

not a necessary state, and so matter

not necessarily self-existent.

is

In

lilce

manner

the motion* of matter

held not to be necessary

it is no contradiction in terms to suppose Thus throughout, our any matter to be at rest. powers or possibilities of conception vvithin, are with him the measures or grounds of inference as He denies the to the reahties of Being without. necessary existence of matter, merely because we can conceive it not to exist and the necessity of

because

motion, because

we can

conceive of other direc-

104

DR. Clarke's a priori

it

argument.

tions to

a necessity
absurdity

than those which obtain actually; and for the actual order or number or
conceive of them variously.

figure of material things, because without logical

we can

The

necessary trueness of eternal truths may be discovered thus, that in the terms of that proposition

which affirmed
contradiction.

their non-trueness there

would be
it

And

so he

would have

that the
dis-

necessary existence of eternal things

may be

covered thus, that in the terms of that proposition

which affirmed

their non-existence there

would be

the like contradiction.

And

therefore

when

the

opposite of any existent thing can be imagined without such contradiction, it exists not necessarily
^nor is it of itself eternal.

The

logical

is

made

be identical with, or made to be the test and the measure of, the actual or the physical necessity* The one is confounded with the other and this we hold to be the first fallacy of the a priori argument.
to
;

7.

On
of

the strength of this fallacy, the

puny

mind

an intellectual and eterimmensity empire over the high things of throughout nature of subjugating the laws nity all her wide amplitudes to the laws of human
hath usurped for
itself

man

thought

and

finding, as

it

were, within the

little

an achievecell of its ment so marvellous, as that of pronouncing alike on all the objects of infinite space, and on all the Because I can imagine events of infinite duration. Jupiter to be a sphere instead of a spheroid ; and no logical absurdity stands in tlie way of such im-

own

cogitations the

means

of

agination-therefore Jupiter must have been created. Because he has only four sateUites, whilst I can

DR. CLARKE
figure hisa to

A PRIORI
;

ARGUMENT.
is

105

have ten

and there

not the same

satel-

arithmetical falsity in this supposition, as in that

three and one

lites

I can might have been variously disposed, that its motions and its magnitudes and its forms may have been different from what they are, and that space might have been more or less filled by it because there is not in short a universal

make up ten therefore all the must have had a beginning. Because
it

picture of matter that

plenum
in this

all

whose parts are immoveably

at rest

Dr. Clarke beholds a sufficient ground for the historical fact that a time was when matter was

power of another beside its substantive Being in our universe. We must acknowledge ourselves to be not impressed by such reasoning. For aught I know or can be made by the light of nature to
not, or at least that to the
itself, it

owes

its

place and

believe
tions

matter may, in spite of those its disposiwhich he calls arbitrary, have the necessity
its

within itself of

own

existence

^and

yet that be
It

neither a logical nor a mathematical necessity.

the ground of which understand because placed transcendentally above my perceptions and my powers or lying
may be
I

a physical necessity
not,

immeasureably beyond the range of my contracted and ephemeral observation. 8. But we have only touched on what may be called the negative part of the a priori argument that by which matter is divested of self-existence. Thence, on the stepping-stone of actual matter, existent though not self-existent, might we pass by inference to a superior and antecedent Being from whom it hath sprung. But this were de-

E 2

106

DR. Clarke's a priori

argument.

scending to the a posten'on argument whereas same the high pretension is, that in the light of that
principle which enables the mind to discard from self-existence, may it all matter the property of

without the intervention of any derived or created of a selfthin"- lay immediate hold on the truth call the might we what forms This God. existent
positive part of the

a priori argument. The truth self-existent, because the supnot^ be matter is, if position of its non-existence involves in it no felt and resistlessly felt contradiction; then the sup.

position of the non-existence of that which really involve in it such a is a self-existent Behig must

" This necessity must," to use the language of Dr. Clarke, " force itself upon us whether we will or no, even when we are endeavouring to suppose that no such Being exists." This is the same principle on which we have
contradiction.
'

'

to be a second

animadverted already; but there appears, we think, and a distinct fallacy involved in \\Tiat is that in the whole the application of it.

compass of thought, whose existence must force and whose non-existence itself upon the mind involves that contradiction which the mind with all

its

efforts

The

cannot possibly admit into its belief. We can imagine answer is space and time.

matter to be swept away and the space which it occupies to be left behind. But we cannot imagine We cannot suppose this space to be swept away. either immensity or eternity to be removed out of
the universe, any
<^

relation of equahty

more than we can remove the between twice two and four. To suppose," he adds, " immensity removed out


DR, Clarke's a priori

ahgument.

107

is an suppose any part of space removed, is to suppose it removed from and out of itself; and to suppose the whole to be taken away, is Apposing it to be taken away from

of the universe or not necessarily eternal

express contradiction."

"

To

itself

that

is

to
is

be taken away while

a contradiction in terms."

it

still

remains which

The

language of Sir Isaac Newton to the same effect " Moveantur partes Spatii de locis suis, et is

movebuntur (ut
then
is

ita
if

dicam) de

seipsis."

Here
a

a something,

you choose thus

to designate

either of the elements of space or time

^here is

something which
essential

fulfils

what

is

affirmed to be the
existence.
Its

condition

of necessary

non-existence involves a contradiction which the

mind cannot possibly receive and its existence is forced upon the mind by a necessity as strong as
;

either
9.

any

logical or
it

Now

is

at the transition

any mathematical. which the argu-

ment makes from the necessary existence of space and time to the necessary existence of God that we apprehend the secdnd fallacy to lie. Eternity and immensity, it is allowed, are not substances
they are only attributes, and, incapable as they are
of existing

by themselves, they necessarily suppose a substantive Being in which they are inherent. '' For modes and attributes," says Dr. Clarke,
^' exist only by the existence of the substance to The denial then of such a which they belong." Being is held to be tantamount to the denial both of infinite space and of everlasting successive duration and so such denial involves contradiction hi it. It is with him a contradiction in terms to

108
assert

DR. Clarke's a priori argument.

pose that there

no immensity and no eternity; and to sii|>is no Being in the universe to

is

which these attributes or modes of existence are

necessarily inherent
also a contradiction in terms.
lies.

Now,

it is

here

we

think that the^f^i-sequitur

do not perceive how boundless space and boundless duration imply either a material or an immaterial substratum in which these may reside
as but the

We

modes or

qualities.

We

can conceive
all

unlimited space, empty and empty for ever, of

substances whether material or immaterial

in the

and we
feel

see neither logical nor mathematical impossibility

way

of such a conception.

We

do not

with Dr. Clarke that the notion of immense space

as
if it

tradiction.

were absolutely nothing is an express conNor do we feel aught to convince in

:

the scholastic plausibility of such sentences as the

following
perties or

" For nothing is that which has no promodes whatever. That is to say, it is that
is

of which nothing can truly be affirmed, and of which

every thing, can truly be denied, which

case of immensity or space.*'

not the

In spite of this
infinite

we

can imagine no eternal and

universe

Being

in the

Ave

can imagine
in so

an

infinite

nothing;
eter-

nor do
nity

feel

that

doing,

we imagine

and immensity removed out of the universe while they at the same time still continue there. There is nothing it appears to us in this scholastic jingle about modes and substances that leads by any firm or solid pathway to the stupendous conclusion of a God. Both Space and Time can be conceived without a substance of which rhey
are but the attributes

nor

is it

at all clear that

DR. Clarke's a priori

these

argument.

109

modes imply a substantive Being to which Now the main stay of the a priori argument is that Eternity and Immensity are modes and as we cannot rid ourselves of the conthey belong.*

ception of a stable existence in the modes, so neither therefore can we rid ourselves'of the conception of an existent substance to which these

modes belong.
should as
little

We

repeat that

we have no
it

faith

in the product of such excogitation as this

and
the

think of building upon

a system

of Theism,
realities of

as

we should

of subordinating

History or Nature to the mere tech-

nology of Schoolmen.
10. However interesting, then, the modesty of Dr. Reid on the subject of the a priori argument, yet we cannot but regard the deUverance of the younger Metaphysician Thomas Brown as greatly the sounder of the two although in it, perhaps,

there

a certain air of confident temerity, especially as he only pronounces on the defects of the And if any argument without expounding them. devised been have argument inconclusive or futile
is

for the support of religion,

it

is

a real service to

It is from the controversy altogether. detaching an element of weakness from the cause.-

discard

it

A doctrine

stands

all

the

more

firm

when placed

on a compact and homogeneous basis instead of resting on a pedestal which like the feet of NebuSir Isaac Newton seems to have penned the following sentences of a Scholium Generale under some such conception as " Deus non eternitas et infinitas, sed eternus et infinitus; thi:<: Hon duratio vel spatium, sed durat-et adest, et existendo semper et izbique durationem et spatium, eteruitatero et infiaitatem

<consiituit.

110

DR. Clarke's a priori

argument.

chadnezzar's image
of iron.

is partly of clay and partly Let us be assured that a weak or a

is not only not an accession but is a positive mischief to the interests of truth a mischief indeed which Dr. Brown has well adverted

wrong reason

to in the foMo\ving sentences

"

Still

more super-

fluous

must be

all

those reasonings with respect

to the existence of the Deity,

from the nature of

certain conceptions

of our mind, independent of

the phenomena of design, which are commonly termed reasonings a priori, reasonings, that if strictly analyzed, are found to proceed on some assumption of the very truth for which they contend, and that, instead of throwing additional Ught on the argument for a Creator of the universe, have served only to throw on it a sort of darkness, by leading us to conceive that there must be some obscurity in truths, which could give an occasion to reasonings so obscure. God and the world which he has formed these are our great objects. Every thing which we strive to place between these

is

nothing.

We

see the universe, and, seeing

it,

we

beheve in its Maker. It is the universe, therefore, which is our argument, and our only argument and as it is powerful to convince us, God is, or is not, an object of our belief." And again " The arguments commonly termed metaphy^ sical, on this subject, I have always regarded, as
;

absolutely void of force, unless in so far as they

proceed on a tacit assumption of the physical argument, and, indeed, it seems to me no small corroborative proof of -the force of this physical
argument, that
its

remaining imDres^on on our

DR. Clarke's a priori

argument.

11

mind has been

sufficient to save us

as to that existence, which the obscure

from any doubt, and labori*

ous reasonings, a priori, in support of it, would have led us to douht, rather than to believe J'* II. We shall not go over the whole unsatisfacand whereof Dr. tory, metaphysics of that period

Clarke
well,

is

far the ablest advocate

and expounder.*
it is

For the sake of our

intellectual discipline,

however, to familiarize ourselves with his

celebrated demonstration, which though in effect

vitiated

by the one or two assumptions that we

an admirable speciIt is not and consecutive reasoning. to be marvelled at, that possessed of such dialectic powers, he should have tinged with his own spirit
have
specified, is nevertheless

men

of close

almost

all

the authorship of natural theology at

at length, in the impotent hands and imitators, it wrought itself out of all credit when unaccompanied by those redeeming qualities which buoyed, up the performance of this great master, and has perpetuated its character as a standard and classical work, even to the The whole of the Boyle lecturepresent day. ship, for example, was for many years deeply infused by it. Bentley, so able in other departments, presents us in his sermons on the subject, with what we should call, a perfect caricature of this a priori extravagance. It even deforms, at times, the pages of Foster, who is the most eloquent, and perhaps the best writer of that age on natural religion. As 'to Abernethy, we hold his book, in spite of the high character which was

that period

till

of his followers

Brown's Lectures, XCII. and XCIII.

112

DR. Clarke's a priori argument.

affixed to it

some half century ago, as so

insipid, that
all

utterly

meagre and

slackening of

one cannot without the his mental energies, accomphsh

it

the continuous perusal of

and therefore

it

really

matters not what quarter he gives, in his pages of cold and feeble rationality, to the a priori arguIt is of more consequence to be told that an argument patronised by Wollaston, who, in his " Religion of Nature Delineated," imitates Clarke in making our ignorance of the Quomodo the foundation of a positive argument. " If matter," he says, " be self-existent, I do not see how it comes to be restrained to a place of certain capacity ^how it comes to be Umited in other

tnent.

it is

respects or why should not a manner that respects perfect." And just because he sees not howtherefore matter must derive
it

exist in

is

in all

its

some other being who causes it to be just what it is. Because we do not see the reason why matter should have been placed here and not
existence from

there in immensity
specific
tions,

^because

we cannot

tell

the

cause of

its

various forms, and modifica-

and movements because of our inability to explore the hidden recesses of the past and so to find out the necessary ground, if ought there is,

for the being

and the properties of every planet

particle

and of every
that there
is

are

we

therefore to infer,

no such ground, and for no better reason than that just by us it is undiscoverable ? The reasoning of Wollaston comes to this Because we do not see how matter came to be

restrained to a particular place

therefore,

it

must

not have been so restrain 3d by an eternal necessity.

DR. CLARKE*S A PRIORI

ARGUMENT.

113

Our own

inference would have been diametrically

Because we see not how, It is a strange argument to found, as Clarke and Wollaston have done, on the impotence and incapacity of the human mind,
the opposite of this.

we should say not how.

that

its

very ignorance should authorize

it

to sport

such positive and peremptory dogmata as have been advanced by them on the high mysteries of primeval being and primeval causation.
12.

Dr. Clarke's

style of reasoning

upon

this

subject, has

now

fallen into utter disesteem

and
of

desuetude.

He himself

disclaims the old scholastic

is

methods of argumentation, while there

his

much

own

that

now ranks with

the

impracticable
deals in the
is

subtleties of the middle ages.

He

categories of a higher region than that which

all

at

familiar to

human

experience

and we fear that

when he attempts
of matter,

to demonstrate the non-eternity

spirit

and that to

alone belong the attri-

butes of primeval necessity

leaves behind

and self-existence, he him that world of sense and observation within which alone the human mind is yet After the modest declaration of able to expatiate. Dr. Reid, it may be presumptuous in us to pass upon this argument a summary and confident rejection. But we may at least confess the total want of any impression which it has made upon our
understanding
for the

and

that with all our partialities

argumentum a posteriori, we hold it with Paley greatly more judicious, instead of groping for the evidence of a Divinity among the transcenaental generalities of time, and space, and matter,

and

spirit,

and the grounds of a necessary and

114

DR. Clarke's a priori argua^ent.

eternal existence for the one, while nought but

modifications and contingency can be observed of the other we hold it more judicious simply to

open our eyes on the actual and peopled world around us or to explore the wondrous economy of our own spirits, and try if we can read, as in a book of palpable and illuminated characters, the
traces or the forth-goings of' a creative
rior to, or at least distinct

mind ante-

both arranged

it

in its

from matter, and which present order and continues

to overrule its processes.

13, Nevertheless, let us again

recommend

the

perusal of Clarke's himself as

if

Demonstration.
it

One

feels

placed by

on the border of certain

transcendental conceptions, the species of an ideal world, w^hich men of another conformation may
fancy, and perhaps even see to be realities.

And

certain

it is,

that the very existence of such high

thoughts in the mind of man may be regarded as the presentiment or promise of a high destination.

So that however unable to follow out the reasonNewton, when they convert our ideas of infinity and eternity into the elements of
ings of Clarke or

the world

such a demonstration as they have bequeathed to nothing, we apprehend, can be more

just or beautiful than the following sentences of

Dugald Stewart, when he views these ideas as the ^" Important earnests of our coming immortality
:

be made of these conceptions of immensity and eternity, in stating the argument for
use
also

may

the future existence of the soul.

For why was the

mind
views

of
in

man

rendered capable of extending his

point of time, beyond the limit of

human

DR. Clarke's a priori

transactions
;

argument.

115

and, in point of space, beyond the

limits of the visible universe

if all

our prospects
the glimpse of

are to terminate here

or

why was

so magnificent a scene disclosed to a being, the period of whose animal existence bears so small a Surely proportion to the vastness of his desires ?
this

conception of the necessary existence of space

and time, of immensity and eternity, was not forced continually upon the thoughts of man for no purpose And to what purpose can we suppose whatever ? it to be subservient, but to remind those who make
a proper use of their reason of the
trifling

value of

some of those objects we at present pursue, when compared with the scenes on which we may afterwards enter and to animate us in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, by affording us the prospect of
;

an

indefinite progression ?"*

14.

Before leaving this subject,

we would

re-

mark on what may be

demonstration of
tlie

called a certain subordinate

application of the a priori argument

^not for

the

being, but for the demonstra-

tion of the attributes of

God.

Dr. Clarke himself

this

admits the impossibility of proving the divine intelligence in this

exception, though, with natural other the proof he attempts an a priori argument the and Godhead of the attributes

way

for

certainly
carries
it

becomes more lucid and convincing as he forward from these to the other attrigoodness, the truth, the justice of the

butes.

The

Divinity, for example,

may not only be inferred by an ascending process of discovery from the works

I. p.

Stewart's Philosophy of the Moral and Active Powers. 336.

Vol,

116

DR. Clarke's A priori

argument.

and the ways of God ^but they are also inferred by a process of derivation from the power, and the unity, and the wisdom. From the ampUtude of His natural, they infer the equal amplitude of His
moral characteristics,
falsehood, because

judging
is
;

Him

superior to

He

tations to weakness exempted from the temptations

exempted from the tempand to malignity because

to rivalship
;

and

to

caprice because in the perfection of his wisdom there is the full guarantee for his doing always

what

is

best.

We

give these merely as specimens

of a style of reasoning which

appreciate

and instead of attempting any further

a Deity in
this

we

shall not stop to

to excogitate

way;

let

us

now

search

if

there be any reflection of

Him

from the

mirror of that universe which he has formed. It be a lovrlier but we deem it a safer enterprise instead of groping our way among the in-

may

comprehensibles of the a priori region, to keep by

the certainties which are spread out before us on the region of sense and observation to look at the actual economy of things, and thence gather as we

may, such traces of a handiwork as might announce a designer's hand to travel up and domi on that

living-

scene which can be traversed by

human

and gazed at with human eyes and search for the impress, if any there be, of the intelligent power that either called it into being, or
footsteps,

that arranged the materials which com.pose

15.

it.

But our examination of the a priori reasoning will not be thrown away it guide our attempts to separate the weak from the stron

^if

parts of the Theistical argument.

More

especiaDy

DR. Clarke's A PRIORI

it

ARGUMENT.

117

should help us to discriminate between the inis

grounded on the true existence of is grounded on the orderlyThe argument for the arrangements of matter. being of a God drawn from the former consideration, tinged as it is throughout with the a priori spirit we hold to be altogether mystical and meaningless insomuch that for the doctrine of an
ference that
matter, the inference that

original creation of matter

we hold

it

essential that

the light of revelation should be superadded to the

dull

and glimmering

light, or

rather perhaps to the

impenetrable darkness of nature.

We

agree with

Dr. Brown in thinking " that matter as an unformed mass, existing without relation of parts, would not of itself have suggested the notion of a
Creator

since

terial or

in every hypothesis something mamental must have existed uncaused, and

is

since existence, therefore,

not necessarily a

mark

of previous causation, unless

we take we

for granted

an

infinite series of causes."

In the mere existence

see nothing
its

of an unshapen or unorganized mass,

that indicates
its

non-eternity or

an antecedent mind while on the other hand, even though nature should incline us to the thought that the matter of this earth and these heavens was from everlasting, there might be enough in the goodlydistribution of its paglB to warrant the conclusion that Mind has been at work with this primeval matter, and at least fetched from it materials for the structure of many a wise and beneficent mechanism.
It is well that Revelation has resolved
for us the else impracticable mystery,

derivation from

and given us
'^

distinctly to understand, that to the fiat of

great

lis

DR. Clarke's a priori argu.men

spirit,

Eternal
its

matter stands indebted as well for

its laws, as for its numerous colloand of convenience. We hold that without a Revealed Theology we should not have

existence and

cations of use

known

of the creation of matter out of nothing, but that by dint of a Natural Theology alone we might have inferred a God from the useful disposiIt is good to know what be the strong positions of an argument and to keep by

tion of its parts.

them

taking up our intrenchments there wiUing to relinquish all that is untenable.

and
It is

not the

advance but really to discredit the cause of Natural Theology, when set forward by
to

way

its

injudicious defenders to an enterprise above its

strength.

Nothing

satisfactory can

be made of

those obscure and scholastic generalities by which

is argued to be incongruous with Eternity and that therefore, itseK originated from nothing, it must have a creative mind for the antecedent not of its harmonies and adaptations alone but of

matter

its

substantive Being.

We
For

should like a firmer

stepping-stone than this by which to arrive at the

conclusion of a God.
of the

this

purpose we would

phenomenon mere existence of matter, from the argument founded on the phenomenon of the relations between its parts. The one i^ptipresses the understanding just as differently fi'om the other, as a
stone of
presses

dissever the argument founded on the

random form
the

lying

upon the ground imfrom a watch.

itself,

observer
are

differently

The mere
nothing.

existence of matter, in

indicates

They

its

forms and

its

combinations

and

its

organic structures which alone speak to us

DR. Clarke's a priori

of a Divinityjust as
it

argumi^t.

119

is

not the clay but the

shape into which it has been moulded that anThe nounces the impress of a Designer's hand. metaphysical argument Avhich we should like to
discard
our

from

this

controversy wants altogether to

mind the character of obviousness.

it

We

can

afford to give

up.

It is truly

a dead weight

u^^it the cause.

cations
of

It is like

seeking for the indiin the

an

artist's

hand

rude and raw

material upon which he operates

when we might

behold them at once in the finished work of those exquisite fabrications which hold forth irresistibly
the marks of contrivance and so of a (!ontriver.*
16.

In combating an argument for a doctrine,

itself.

we

are not therefore combating the doctrine

Dr. Clarke has failed, we think in his attempt to demonstrate the non-eternity of matter ^but it follows not that because we have attempted to expose

this failure,

we advocate
fall

the eternity of matter.

It

is

well that our behef in the truths of religion

does not stand or

of any
th^^.

with the success or the failure

human expounder.

We

happen

to think

on the abstract question of the creation of matter out of nothing, there is a want of clear and
decisive manifestation

that for the establishment of

the right

and what we hold to be and orthodox position upon this question,

by the

light of nature

* Let us here present the following short and judicious extract from Dr. Fiddes' work entitled " Theologia Speculativa or a Body of Divinity." " But to discover the weakness of any arf<vira'-jnt in particular which may be brought to prove a fundamental article of religion is not, as some pious men have supposed, but only shows it does not stand in Tieed to do religion disservice of any artifices and has nothing to fear from a fair ingeuiioifs at.J

free examination."

120
there

DI^CLARKE*S A PRIORI ARGUiVIENT,

is

an incompetency not in the a 'priori arguargument which the unaided reason of man can devise. We wonder not for example, that Aristotle, unblest and unvisited as he was by any communication from Heaven, admitted both an eternal matter and an eternal

ment

alone, but in every

mind into his creed ^for in truth the brightest and most convincing evidences for the one might for aught we know, consist with the alJoriginal and everlasting occupancy of the other in our universe. These evidences as we shall afterwards see, are grounded not on the existence of matter, but on the order and disposition of its parts and point to the conclusion, not that there must have been an

matter into being, but that there must have been an intelligent spirit
intelligent spirit that willed the

who willed it into all those beauteous and beneficial arrangements which we every where behold. It is revelation alone we apprehend which has completely fixed

and ascertained the proposition, that

its

God
sent

not only fashioned our universe into

pre-

but that he also created the materials from which it is composed. He

;

mechanism and form

but he made it, and Nature perhaps cannot pronounce decisively on the making but of the exquisite moulding, of the goodly dispositions and structures that bespeak contrivance and a contriver, it taketh ample cognizance so that it cannot look with inteUigence to any department of observation
;

not only moulded the clay

it

made

out of nothing.

or of science without a powerful impression that the

hand of a

divinity has

been there.

MR. HUME^S OBJECTION

121

CHAPTER
Of the Metaphysics which
(me. hume's objection to

IV.

have been resorted to on the tide

of Theism.

the a posteriobi argument, grounded on the assertion that the world is a

singular effect.)
I.

The

doctrine of innate ideas in the mind,

is

wholly different from the doctrine of innate tendencies in the

mind

which

tendencies

may

lie

some occasion have manifested or brought them forth. In a newly formed mind, there is no idea of nature or of a single object in nature ^yet no sooner is an
undeveloped
till

the excitement of

object presented,

or

is

an

event

observed

to

happen, than there

is elicited

the tendency of the

presume on the constancy of nature. At back as our observation extends, this law of the mind is in full operation. Let an infant for the first time in its life, strike on the table with a spoon and, pleased with the noise, it will repeat
to

mind

least as far

that stroke with every appearance of a confident

anticipation that the noise will be repeated also.
It counts on the invariableness wherewith the same consequent will follow the same antecedent. In the language of Dr. Thomas Brown, these two terms make up a sequence and there seems to exist in the spirit of man, not an underived, but

an aboriginal
sequences.

faith,

in the uniformity of nature's

122
2.

MR. Hume's objection

This instinctive expectation of a constancy
but
is

in the succession of events is not the fruit of ex-

perience

anterior to

it.

The

truth

is

that

experience, so far from strengthening this instinct

of the understanding as
it

has been called, seems

it.

rather to modify and restrain

elicited
its

The

child

who

a noise which

it

likes

from the

collision of

spoon with the table would, in the

first

instance,

expect the same result from a like collision with

any material surface spread out before

of a sea-shore.

it

as

if

placed for example, on the smooth and level sand

Here

the

effect

of experience

would be

to correct its first strong

anticipations

so that in time

it

and unbridled would not look for

the wished for noise in the infliction of a stroke

upon sand or clay or the surface of a fluid, but The office of exupon wood or stone or metal.
perience here
is

not to strengthen our faith in the

are.

uniformity of nature's sequences, but to ascertain

what the sequences actually

the experience
faith
is

The

effect of

not to give the

faith,

but to the
its

to

add knowledge.

At
it is

the

outset of

experience a child's confidence in the uniformity of

nature
its

is

unbounded

and

in the progress of

meets with that which serves to limit the confidence and to qualify it. It goes forth upon external nature furnished beforehand with the expectation of the invariableness which obtains between nature's antecedents and her consequents-^but it often falls into mistakes in estimating what the proper antecedents and consequents
experience, that
it

are.

To

ascertain this

is

the great use of experi-

ence.

The

great object of repetition in experiments

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

is

123

not to strengthen our confidence in the constancy

of nature's sequences

^but

to ascertain

what be
It

the real and precise terms of each sequence.

purpose that experiments are so varied ^for in that assemblage of contemporaneous things amid which a given result takes place, it is often
is for

this

at the first which of the things is the and proper antecedent and it is to determine this, that sometimes certain of the old circumstances are detached from the groupe and

not

known

strict

certain

new ones added,

till

the discrimination has

been precisely made between what is essential and what is merely accessary in the process. 3, This predisposition to count on the uniformity of nature is an original law of the mind, and
is

not the fruit of our observation of that uniformity.

has been well stated by Dr. Brown that there no more of logical dependence between the propositions, that a stone has a thousand times fallen to the earth and a stone will always fall to the earth, than there is between the propositions that a stone has once fallen to the earth and a stone " At whatever link will always fall to the earth. of the chain we begin," he says, "we must always meet with the same difficulty, the conversion of the past into the future. If it be absurd to make this conversion at one stage of inquiry, it is just as absurd to make it at any other stage ; and, as far as our memory extends, there never was a time at which we did not make the instant converIt
is

sion."

The

past only

truth

is,

that experience teaches the

It tells us

^not

the future.

what has
to

happened before the present moment

and

mfer

124
from
this

MR. Hume's objection

what
will

happen afterwards, requires

the aid of a distinct principle

ciple of behef, in short,

^the

instinctive prin-

whose reaUty we are now

contending
4.

for.

The constancy

of nature

and man's

faith in

that constancy do not stand related to each other

like the

way

of cause

terms of a logical proposition, or in the There is a most and consequence.

beneficent

mental law

harmony between the material and the

^but it is altogether

a contingent har-

mony; and the adaptation of the one to the other is perhaps the most precious evidence within the compass of our own unborrowed hght, for a presiding intelligence in the formation or arrangements The argument unfolded by Dr. of the universe. Paley with such marvellous felicity and power, is founded chieily on the fitnesses that meet together in man's coporeal economy, and on the adjustments
of
its

parts to external nature.

It is true that

our

mental economy offers nothing so complex or so palpable on which to raise a similar argument and yet can we instance a more wonderful adjustment, or one more prolific of good to our species, than that which obtains between the unexcepted
uniformity of nature's processes,

and the prior

independent disposition which resides in the heart of man to count upon that uniformity, and to pro-

Were it not ceed on the unfaltering faith of it ? man should fox ever remain a lost and bewildered creature among the appearances around
for this,

him

and

no experience of

his could in the least

help to unravel the confusion.

nature up to the pres'ent

The regularity &l moment would be of no

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

avail,

125

without his faith in the continuance of that regularity and it is only by the force of this instinctive anticipation, that the memorials of the

past serve him as indices by which to guide his way through the futurity that lies before him.

The striking accordancy is, that there should be such an expectation deposited in every bosom; and that from every department of the accessible creation there should be to this expectation the response
or the echo of one wide and unexcepted fulfilment. It is hke a whisper to the heart of man of a
universal promise, which can only be executed

by

a hand of universal agency and as if the same Being who infused the hope by an energy within, did, by a diffusive energy abroad, cause the response of an unfailing accompHshment to arise from all This the amplitudes of creation and providence.
intuitive faith is not the acquisition of experience

but

is

given as

if

by the touch

of inspiration for the

purpose of stamping on experience all its value not gathered by man from his observation of outward nature; but forming an original part of his own nature, and yet in such glorious harmony with all that is around him throughout the innumerable host of nature's sequences, that he never once

by

trusting in her constancy

is

disappointed or

deceived.

Such

is

the steadfastness of her manifold

processes that nature never misgives from her

constancy.
instinct

Such

is

the strength of his mental

.

man never misgives from His conHad it not been for the union of these fidence. The two -man had been incapable of wisdom.
that

126

MR. Hume's objection

establishment of both bespeaks at once the wisdom

and the
5.

faithfulness of a
this

But
is

constitution of

God. harmony between the intellectual man and the general constitution of

not only of use in a theological argumight also be applied to strengthen the foundations of our Philosophy. It forms a demonstration of the perfect safety wherewith we might
nature,

ment

it

confide in our ultimate or original principles of

behef.

We

have experimental evidence of

this in

our anticipation of nature's constancy being so

fully reahzed.

This anticipation
is verified

is

not the fruit

by experience. It is an instinct of the understanding and that it should have been so met and responded to over the whole domain of creation is like the testimony of a concurrent voice from all things inanimate to the Creator's
of experience, but
;

faithfulness.

Seeing that one of the instinctive

without

tendencies of the mind has been so palpably accredited from

as
if

^we

may commit

ourselves,
its

to

an

infallible

guidance, in following

other

instinctive tendencies.
is

suspicious, as

if

There is a scepticism that they were so many false lights,

of our original and universal principles whether in

judgment or taste or morals and which looks upon them at best as but the results of an arbitrary
organization.
it

From

the instance

now

before us

is

plain that the arbiter of our constitution, the

mechanism of our spirits, has at most strikingly adapted it to the constitution and the mechanism of external things the hope or behef of constancy in the one meeting in the other
artificer of the

least


TO THE
A

POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

127
This

with the most rigid and invariable fulfilment.

is

the strongest practical vindication which can be imagined, of the unshaken faith that we might place
in the instinctive

and primary suggestions of nature.

our intellectual

It restores that feeling of security to

processes which the Philosophy of

to unsettle:

Hume so laboured

And we

again feel a comfort and a

confidence in the exercises of reason

when

thus

reassured in the solidity

of those axioms which are

reason's stepping-stones, in the substantive truth

and certainty of those

argumentation takes
6.

first

principles

whence

all

its rise.

But the mention

of

David

Hume

leads to

the consideration of that atheistical argument which

has been associated with his name

an argument
what the

not founded however on any denial of the regularity of nature's sequences ^but proceeding on the admission of that regularity ; and only assuming the

necessity

of

experience

to

ascertain

sequences actually are. Mr. Hume's argument is After having once observed the conjunction tills :

between any two terms of an invariable sequence it is granted that from the observed existence of
either of the terms, w^ecan conclude without observa^

tion the existence of the other

that from a perceived

although
infer the antecedent,

antecedent we can

foretell its consequent,

v/e should not see it; or

on the other hand from the

perceived consequent

we can

although

it

should not have been seen by us.

of the causal relation

Hav-

ing had the observation once of the two terms

and B, and

between them,

the appearance of

A singly would
B

warrant the anti-

cipation of B, or of

singly the inference of A,

125

MR. HUME^S OBJECTION

But then it is required for any such inference that we should have had the observation or experience,
at least once, of both these terms
;

and of the con-

junction between them.

If

we have seen but once

in our life a watch made, and coming forth of the hands of a watch-maker; we, in all time coming, can, on seeing the watch only, infer the watch-maker. But this full experience comprehensive of both terms is wanting, it is alleged, in the question of a

God. We may have had an experience reaching to both terms of the sequence in watch-making ^but we have had no such experience in world-making.

forth from the observed fiat of

but seen a world once made, and coming an inteUigent Deity, then the sight of every other world might have

Had we

justified the inference that for

it too there behoved have been a world-maker. It is the want of that completed observation which we so often have in the cases of human mechanism, that constitutes it is apprehended the flaw or failure in the customary argument for a God as founded on the mechanism

to

of nature.
singular

It

eff'ect

is
^it

because the world

is

is

to

us a

because

we have

only per-

ceived the consequent a world, and never perceived the alleged antecedent the mandate of a Creator
at

whose forth-putting some other world had sprung

^it is because in this instance we have but witnessed one term of a succession and never witnessed its conjunction with a prior term,

into existence

we are hopelessly debarred it is thought, from ever coming soundly or legitimately to the concluthat
sion of a
.

God.
following are so

7.

The

many

of the passages

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

129

from Hume containing the argument in his own words " But it is only when two species of objects are found to be constantly conjoined that we can infer the one from the other and were an effect presented which was entirely singular and could not be comprehended under arri^known species, I do not see that we could forn^uiy conjecture or
:

inference at

all

concerning

its

cause.

If experience

and observation and analogy be indeed the only guides which we can reasonably follow in inferences of this nature ^both the effect and cause must bear a similarity and resemblance to other effects and causes which we know, and which we have found

in

A^in

many instances to be conjoined with each other."* " If we see a house, we conclude with the

greatest

certainty

that
is

it

had an
to

architect

or

builder; because this

effect,

precisely that species of

which we have experienced

proceed from

that species of cause.

But

surely

you

will

not

affirm that the universe bears such a resemblance to a house, that

infer

we can with

the same certainty

is

similar cause, or that the analogy

here

and perfect. The dissimilitude is so striking, that the utmost you can here pretend to is a guess, a conjecture, a presumption concernmg a similar cause and how that pretension w^ill be received in the world I leave you to consider.".-.--" When two species of objects have always been observed to be conjoined together, I can infer by custom the exists ence of one, wherever I see the existence of the other; and this I call an argument from experience.
entire
;

Hume's Essays, Vol. II. p. 167, being an extract from hi Essay on Providence and a Future State. ,

F 2

130

MR. HUME*S OBJECTION

this

But how

argument can have place, where the

objects as in the present case, are single, individual,

without parallels or specific resemblance,

difficult to

may be

any man tell me with a serious countenance, that an orderly universe must arise froiagtome thought and act, like the
explain.

And

will

human

becaus^^e have experience

it"

of

it

To
we

ascertain this reasoning,

were

requisite, that

and it is not had and cities ships have seen we sufficient surely, that " Can contrivance." and art human arise from
experience of the origin of worlds;

you pretend

show any such similarity between and the generation of a Have you ever seen nature in any universe? such situation as resembles the first arrangemenf of Have worlds ever been formed the elements? under your eye? and have you had leisure to observe the whole progress of the phenomena,
to

the fabric of a house,

from the first appearance of order to its final consummation ? If you have, then cite your experience and deliver your theory."* 8. Now it appears to us that this argument of Hume has not been rightly met by any of his Instead of resisting it they have antagonists.
retired from
it

and,

in fact,

done him the homage

of conceding the principle on which it rests. They have sufi*ered him to bear away one of the prime

supports of Natural Theism; and, to make up for this loss, they have attempted to replace it with

another support which I hold to be altogether

precarious.

Hume

denies that

we

hl^ve

any ex-

The above

extracts are taken

from Hume's Dialogne* con-

cerning Natural Religion.

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

perimental evidence for the being of a
that simply because

131

God and
in

the

making of

we have not any experience worlds. Had we observed once

or

A and B then though alone we might have inferred A. Had we observed though only once, a God employed in making a world. then when another world was presented to our notice we might have inferred a God. But we have never had the benefit of such observation and hence the conclusion of Mr. Hume is, that the reasoning for a God is not founded on the basis of Now how is this met both by Reid experience. and Stuart ? ^by conceding that the argument for a God is not an experimental one at all the inference of design from its effects being a result neither of reasoning nor of experience. When the question is put, on what then is the inference grounded ?the never-failing reply in a difficulty of this sort, and in which more than once these philosophers have taken convenient refuge is, that it is grounded on an intuitive judgment of the mind.
oftener the sequence of two terms

afterwards on our observing

9.

Our own
it

opinion of this evasion

is

that to

was unnecessary and we think that without recurring to any separate principle on the subject, Mr. Hume's argument might be satisfactorily disposed of, though we had no other ground for the inference of a designing cause, than that upon which we reason from hke consequents to the hke antecedents that went before
say the least

them.
10.
It.

appears to us that these philosophers

have most unnecessarily mystified the argument

132
for

of the right argument.

a God, besides giving an untrue representation The considerations on which

design from

Reid and Stewart would resolve the inference of its effects into an original principle, distinct from that by which we infer any other cause from its effects even our prior observation of the conjunction between them, appear to us They most singularly weak and inconclusive. say that we can only infer design on the part of a fellow-creature from its effects in this instinctive or intuitive way, because we never had any direct perception of his mind at all, and therefore never

had a view of the antecedent but only of the consequent. But we have the evidence of consciousness,
the strongest of
all

evidence, for the existence of

our own mind ; we have both the antecedent and the consequent in this one instance, both the
design and
signers
;

its

effects

when

ourselves are the de-

and, from the similarity of those effects

which proceed from ourselves to those which proceed fi*om our neighbours, we infer on a sufficient experimental ground that there are design and It comes a designing mind on their part also. peculiarly ill from Mr. Stewart to say that we know nothing of mind but by its operations and effects, who himself has so oft affirmed that all our knowledge of matter comes to us in the same way ; and that the properties of tvhich sense informs us as belonging to the one form no better evidence for
the substantive existence of matter, than that for
the substantive existence of

mind afforded by the

even though

properties of which consciousness informs us as

belonging to the other.

And

we

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

133

should allow that, apart from all that experimental reasoning by which from the observation of what
passes with ourselves

we make

inference as to

what passes with others of our kind, we arrive by means of a direct and instinctive perception to the knowledge of the existence of other human minds beside our own there is no analogy between this case and that of the divine mind as inferred from

the

eifects

or

the

evidences

of

design in the

workmanship of nature. God does not by this workmanship hold himseK forth to observers in
visible personality as

our fellow-creatures do.

He
left

has left for our inspection a thousand specimens of

skilful

and beauteous mechanism

but he has

These us to view them as separate from himself. philosophers would have us to infer a designing
from the works of nature, just as we infer a man not from the works of man but fr'om man in the act of working even as if the divine spirit animated nature in the same manner as the human spirit animates the framev/ork by which it is encompassed. Now the proper analogy

God

designing mind in

is

is

to view a piece of human workmanship, after it completed and may be seen separately from the man himself ; and to compare this with the workmanship of nature viewed separately from God.

We

take cognizance of the former as the work of

man, just because in previous instances we have This conseen such work achieved by man. sideration proceeds altogether upon experience and what we have now to ascertain is, in how far
experience warrants us to conclude

a designing

eauae for the workmanship of nature.

We

hold

134

MR, humf/s objection

that this conclusion too has a strict experience for

its

basis

ciple has

from his " The argument as is manifest proceeds entirely on the supposition that our inferences of design are
in

and that, notwithstanding that the prinbeen given up by Stewart as is evident following reply to Hume's argument.

every case the result of experience, the con-

trary of which has been already sufficiently

shown

and
ii it

which indeed (as Dr. Reid has remarked)

be admitted as a general truth, leads to this that no man can have any evidence of the existence of any intelligent being but himconclusion

self."*

* Stewart's Philosopliy of the

11. p. 25.

Moral and Active Powers, Vol.

In this treatise Mr. Stewart has rather presented the opinions of others, than come forth in p>opria persona with any sustained pleading of liis own ; and, as in most of his other performances, instead of grappling with the question, he presents us with the made up of history therefore rather literature of the question than of argument, and altogether composing but the outline of what had been said or reasoned by other men, though accompanied with a very few slight yet elegant touches from his own hand. by no means agree with those who think of this interesting personage, that, considering the few substantive additions which he made to philosophy, he therefore as a philoIt is true, he has not sopher had gained an unfair reputation. yet, in virtue of a added much to the treasures of science certain halo which by the glow of his eloquence and the purity and nobleness of liis sentiments he threw around the cause, he It reminds us of what abundantly sustained the honours of it. is often realized in the higher walks of society, when certain

We

men

vastly inferior to others both in family and in fortune, do, in

virtue of a certain lofty beai'ing in which they are upheld by the consciousness of a grace and a dignity that natively belong to them, not usurp the highest place in fashion, but have that place most readily awarded to them by the spontaneous consent and testimony of all. It was thus with Stewart in the world of

His rank and reputation there were not owing either to the number or importance of the discoveries achieved by him. liut he had what many discoverers have not. Ho had the sualetters.

TO THE A POSTEIlIOm ARGUMENT.

135

11. Let us therefore resume our observations on the strong mstinctive confidence of the human mmd in the uniformity of nature and thence apply

ourselves to the consideration

of

this

seemingly

formidable argument.
1 2. We have already remarked on the perfect agreement which there is between the constancy of nature, and the instinctive belief which men have There seems no necessary in that constancy. connexion between these two things. It might There for aught we know have been otherwise. might have been a tendency in the human mind always to look for the like event in the like circumstances and this anticipation on our part may have been thwarted at every turn by the most capricious and unlooked for evolutions, on the part of the actual world that is around us. Or there might have been the same uniformity that there is ^but no such constitutional proin nature now

pensity with us to count

upon

that

uniformity.

In either case we should not have profited by the

lessons of experience.

The remembrance

of the

past could have furnished no materials on which to

ground or

to guide our expectations of the future.

tained and the lofty spirit of a high-toned academic ; and never did any child, whether of science or poetry, breathe in an atmo-

sphere moi'e purely ethereal. The je ne scais quoi of manner does not wield a more fascinating power in the circles of fashion, than did the indescribable; charm of his rare and elevated genius over our literary circles and, when we consider the homage of reverence and regard which he drew from general society, we cannot but wish that many successors may arise in his own likeness who might build up an aristocracy of learning, that shall infuse a finer element into the system of life, than any which has ever been distilled upon it from the vulgar aristocracies of wealtli or of power.
;

136
It is not

because of one thing, that nature

it is

is

con-

stant
is

because of two things, that nature constant and that we have been endowed with
;

but

an

irresistible faith in that

constancy

it is

because

two elements that might have been separated the one from the other, it is because of an adaptation between the mental economy in man and that general economy of things in the midst of which he is placed, that any wisdom at all can be reared on the basis of observation or that, on the appearances which are before our eyes, we can either reason back to those which have preceded, or forv. ard to those which are hereafter to ensue from them.
of a concurrence in fact between
;

13.

Our

expectation of the constancy of nature

in all time

coming, because of our experience of

is

that constancy in all past time, of reason

not a deduction
resistless prin-

^but

an immediate and

It is no an argumentative process than any sensation or emotion is. That, on the obser-

ciple of belief in the

fruit of

human

constitution.

more the

vation of a certain event in given circumstances,

there should be a confident anticipation of the same

event in the same circumstances

principle of
;

this is the assumed

it is

many a reasoning but

belief,

not reason-

ing which has conducted us

underived and intuitive

as

It is an and not a belief that we reach by a succession of steps and is, as far

thereto.

we can

discern, as strong in infancy as

it is

in to

matiive and established manhood.

It is vain

say that the constancy of nature throughout every

former generation of the world,

is

a reason for the

constancy of nature throughout every future gene*

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

ration of
it.

137

The two

statements are distinct, the

is

one from the other

necessity

and there
the

sm-ely no logical
is

why because

first

statement

true,

the

second should be true

also.

Nevertheless,

and without reasoning, we are led from believing by observation in the first, irresistibly to believe by There is a harmony, anticipation in the second. but it is a contingent harmony, between our strong instinctive conviction that it shall be so, and the
unfaiUng universal accomplishment
very strongest
of
it.

among
is

the principles of the

The human

understanding
very surest
nature
;

faithfully

responded
processes

to

by the
external

among

the

of

no will and to reasoning which no would be left without a basis ^is perhaps the most striking proof which can be given, that man, even

and

this adaptation,

due

to

reasoning of ours, yet without

stalking in the pride of his intellectual greatness along the high walk of philosophy, is but the creature of an instinct that should ever be leading

when

him astray

^liad not God made the laws and the arrangements of his universe to correspond with it. 14. But while we thus advocate the indepen-

dence of the two laws on each other, that

is,

of

the mental or subjective law of man's instinctive faith in the constancy of nature, on the external
or objective law of nature's actual constancy
siiould well be understood, that the view

it

we

are

now

to give of

Hume's

atheistical

argument does

not rest on any metaphysical theory whatever, as WTiether to the origin of this universal belief.
it

be

distinct fi'om experience or the fruit of

it is

expe-

rience,

not upon this that

we

join issue with

138

MR. Hume's objection

Inquirers

our antagomst.
successions.

may
we

diifer

as to the

origin of our belief in the uniformity of nature's

On

this topic
It is

exact no particular
if

opinion from them.

the soundness of that
or the derivation of
it

enough

we agree
It is

in

belief,

whatever the descent

been.

may have

man's

same consequents are ever preceded by the same antecedents, and the two questions are altogether distinct from each other whence does that judgment take its rise, We and whether that judgment is a true one. may differ or agree upon the first. It matters not, if we agree upon the second, which forms the basis of Hume's reasoning. We concede to him his own
universal judgment, that the

premises

even that we are not entitled

its

to infer

an

antecedent from

consequent, unless

we have

before had the completed observation of both these

terms and of the succession between them.

disclaim the aid of
ciples in
all

We

new

or questionable prin-

argument a posteriori
strictly

meeting his objection, and would rest the for the being of a God, on a experimental basis.
uniformity of nature
lies in this,

15.

The

that

the same antecedents are always followed by the

same consequents.
in every respect

Grant that the former agree

latter will also agree in

then the

This invariable following of two events, the one by the other, is termed a sequence;
every respect.

and there
sequences.
16.

is

not a more unfailing or universal

characteristic of nature than the constancy of these

For the argument of

tiiat

this

chapter

it

is

enough

v.e

p,m\

our antajronists have a com-

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

139

belief in the constancy of these sequences though they who think, as we do, that the behef is of instinctive origin, cannot but feel how wondrous the coincidence is between the constancy itself and the fact, that from the very first dawnings of mental perception this constancy is counted upon,
xt

mon

does not at

all

appear that the experience of

is

nature's constancy

first

waited for

ere

it

is

anticipated
iiad
to

by the mind. And even although it be waited for; and the observation had
for to

been made
it is
still

years of nature's constancy be explained why we should infer

from
are

this the

same constancy
It

in the years

which

to

come.
hath

does not follow that because

invariable

nature

proceeded in a certain

course throughout the whole retrospect of our

experit^nce,
it must therefore do the same throughout the whole range of our future anticipations. The one fact does not necessarily involve the

other. There has been an unfailing constancy in nature through the years that are past and there appears no necessity which can be assigned, why

on

this account there should be as unfailing a constancy of nature through the years that are to come. It may be, or it may not be,but yet the firm impregnable conviction of all, is that most

certainly
all

it

shall

be

and

this anticipation,
is

which

without exception have,

fulfilment. 17.

followed up by the

most unexcepted

is of a certain temperature always melt ice. The impulse that hath once given direction and velocity, will always in the

The

heat that

will

same circumstances be followed up with motion.


240

MR. hume's objection

The body that is raised from the earth's surface, and then left without support, will always descend. The
position of the

moon

in

a certain quarter of
shores.

the heavens, will always be responded to by the

rising or
falling

tides

upon our

I'hese

antecedents

may be

variously blended; and this

;

will give rise

to different results

but the very

same assemblage of antecedents will always be followed by the same consequents. Our own personal experience may have been limited to a few square miles of the earth that we tread upon yet this would not hinder such a faith in the immutability of nature, that

we

could bear

it

in con-

fident application all over the globe.

In other

we count upon this constancy far beyond what we ever have observed of it and still the topic of our wonder and gratitude is, that a belief in every way so instinctive should be followed up by an accomplishment so sure. 18. But we shall dilate no further on the general
words,

position, that our faith in the future constancy of

nature
of

is

intuitive,

and not deduced by any process

of reasoning however short, from our observation

its

past constancy.

the masterly treatise of Dr.

Let us here recommend Thomas Brown on

department of and

Cause and Effect

his

philosopher who, with occa-

sional inadvertencies in the ethical

course, hath thrown a flood of copious

original light over

the mysteries of the

human
to

understanding; and

who seems,

in particular,

have grappled successfully with a question at one time dark and hopeless as the metaphysics of the
schoolmen.

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

141

on the origin of

19. Without, therefore, expatiating any farther this behef, and certainly without

laying the least argumentative stress

to

upon
offer

^let it reasonings which we have now a such exists there suffice for the present that correits with meets it and that belief in our mind,

it

in the

spondent reality in nature.

20.

There are two processes

of inference, which,

however

identical in their principle,

may be

distin-

When there is guished the one from the other. an invariable connexion between certain antecedents and certain consequents then, upon our

seeing the antecedents,

to the

we

look confidently forward

appearance of the- consequents or, when we conclude that theu: But proper antecedents have gone before them. shall antecedents various it may so happen, that

we

see the consequents,

be mingled together at the same time some of which have an influence upon the result, and some of which have none but still so as to make it a
;

necessary
trains

exercise

of

mind

to

disentangle

the

from each other, and to discriminate Avhat be the terms which stand to each other in the strict relation of a sequence that is invariable. 21. But to descend from the obscure language Let us take the of generaUties upon this subject. case of a watchmaker, and a watch, the former being the antecedent and the latter the consequent ^both of which, and the actual conjunction of which, we have already observed, if we have ever
seen a watch made.
antecedent, there
is

Now, on

looking

first to

the

the proper and the

room for distinguishing between It were wrong to accidental

142

MR. Hume's objection

it

say of this antecedent, that

particulars which
in

comprises

all

the

meet and are assembled together the person of the watchmaker. It has nothing

to do, for example, with the colour of his hair, or with the quality of his vestments, or with the height of his stature, or with the features of his

countenance, or with the age and period of his

and proper antecedent is distinct and may be said to lie enveloped, as it were, in a mass or assemblage of contemporaneous things which have nothing to do with the fabrication of the watch.
life.

The

strict
all

from one and

of these particulars

The

watch, in

fact, is

the consequent of a purposthe execution of a

ing mind

putting

itself forth in

mechanism for the

of competent skill
tion.

indication of time,

and power

for such

and possessed an execu-

The mind

of the observer separates here

the essential from the accessary.

Should he ever

again meet with the forth-putting of the

same

essential antecedent as before, he will expect the

same consequent as before even though he should never meet with an antecedent compassed about Mth the same accessaries. The next watchmaker may differ from any he had ever before seen, in a
multitude
dress,

of particulars

in

age,

in

stature,

in

other

and general appearance, and a thousand modifications which it were endless to

specify. Yet how manifestly absurd to look for another consequent than a watch because of these

accidental variations.

It is not to
all.

any of these
It is solely
skill
first

that the watch

to a

is

a consequent at

purposing mind, possessed of competent and power and this was common both to the


TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.
143

The next time that and the second watchmaker. we shall see a watchmaker addressing himself to his specific and professional object, there is little probability that we shall see in him the very same assemblage of circumstantials that
yet

we
are

ever witnessed

before in any other individual of his order.

And

how absurd

different

now looking to a antecedent from any that we ever before

to say that

we

had the observation of

in this

that,

just as

Hume

calls

the world a singular eiFect,

we
it is
it

are

now beholding

new watchmaker

the operation of a singular

cause
dict

and

that therefore

impossible to pre-

what

sort of consequent

may

be, that will

come out

of his hands.

It is true that there are

many
which,
will

circumstantial things in and about the

if

man

we admit

as parts of

the

antecedent, antecedent.
is

make up

altogether

a singular

But

in the strict essential

antecedent there

no

singularity.

There

is

a purposing mind resolved

on the manufacture of a watch, and endowed with achievement of its object. This is what we behold now, and what we have beheld formerly and so, in spite of the alleged, and indeed the actual singularity of the whole compound assemblage, we look for the very same consequent as before.
a sufficient capacity for the

22.

What

is

true of the antecedent

is

true also

There may be an indefinite number of accessary and accidental things, associated with that which is strictly and properly the posterior term of the sequence. In a watch it is
of the consequent.

the adaptation of rightly shapen parts to a distinctly noticeable

end,

the

indication

of

time

144

MR. Hume's objection

which forms the true consequent to the thought and agency of a purposing mind in the watchmaker. But in this said watch there are a thousand collateral things which, rightly speaking, form no part of the essential consequent though altogether they go to a composition different perhaps, in some respects, from any that was ever exemplified before and therefore go to the construction of a singular m atch. There is the colour of the materials, there is their precise weight and magnitude, there is* the species of metal each of these and of many other things apart from that one thing of form and arrangement, which indicates the work and contrivance of an artist. Were the

things

with their existing

properties

presented
of a
It
is

before

me

in a confused mass, the inference

designing cause

would instantly vanish.

the arrangement of things, obviously fashioned and

arranged for the measurement of time, that forms the sole consequent a consequent which does not

is

comprise

all

the other circumstantial peculiarities

that we have now specified, but which rather hes enveloped in the midst of them. These circumstantial things,
it

very possible,

were never

precisely so blended, as they are in the specimen

before me. There never, it is most likely, was just such a colour, united with just such a weight, and

with just such a magnitude, and with just such an exact order of parts in the machinery, as altogether obtain in the individual watch upon which I am

now

reasoning.

When

looked

to,

therefore,

in

this general

and aggregate view, it may be denominated a singular effect. Yet who does not see

TO THE A POSTEillORI AKGU3IENT.

that the inference of a designing cause spoiled by this ?
is in

145

no way

As a whole
that in
it

it

may be
is

singular

but
There
skill to

there
is

is

which

not singular.

the collocation of parts which has been

all

exemplified in

other watches; and on which

is

alone the inference

devise and
it.

founded, of an artist with

to execute,
this

power
It
is

the producer of

having been which the observer

separately looks to, and singles out, as it were, from all the collateral things which enter into the assemblage that is before his eyes. In the effect, the strict and proper consequent is the adjustment and adaptation of parts for an obvious end. In the cause, the strict and proper antecedent is a designing intelligence, wherewith there may at the same time be associated a thousand peculiarities of person, and voice, and manner, to him unknown ^but to him of no' importance to be known, for the purpose of establishing the sequence between a purposing mind which is not seen, and the piece of mechanism which is seen.

23.

But

ere

we can bring

this

reasoning to bear

on the Atheism of Hume there is still a farther abstraction to be made. Hitherto we separated the essential consequent from the accessaries in a watch.so that though each watch may be singular
in respect of all its accessaries

taken together
the

yet

all

the watches have in

common
infer

that essential

consequent from which

we

agency of

design in the construction of them.

That consethe measure-

quent

is

adaptation of parts for the specific end

which the mechanism serves

that

is,

ment

of time.

But

it

should be further understood

146
that, for the

MR. Hume's objection

purpose of mferring design, it is not the end of the arrangement in

necessary

that

question should be some certain and specific end. It is enough to substantiate the inference that the

arrangement should be obviously conducive to some end to any end. From what the end par-

is,

ticularly
v.'as

we

learn

which the

artist

what the particular object had in view ^but for the pur-

pose of warranting the general inference that there was an artist who had a sometliing in view, it matIt is enough what the end particularly is. an end which and that, other end or some that it be itself obmachine of the working or structure the In the case of a watch the viously announces.

ters not

following are the counterpart terms of the sequence.

The consequent

is

a mechanism adapted for the

measurement of time. And its counterpart antecedent is an intehigent adaptation, putting forth his ability and skill on the production of a meBut thoqgh chanism for the measurement of time.

we

should lop olf, as it were, the m^easurement of time or this specific end from each of these terms; and substitute in its stead an end generally, or a

whatever end, the inference of an

tion

intelligent adapta-

would still would be a mechanism adapted for a whatever end (and that an end to be learned from the examinaand its counterpart tion of the mechanism itself) antecedent would be an intelligent adaptation for For either the more special that whatever end.
hold good.
;

The consequent then

or the more general inference,

we

equally arrive at
in the con-

an

intelligent adaptation.

When we
to

sequent restrict our attention

what the end

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

particularly
is,

147

then

we

proportionally restrict the

niind bent on

antecedent to

an

intelligent

the

accomplishment of that speciiic end. But when in the argument we make but a general recognition in the consequent of some end or other, the conclusion is equally general of an intelligent mind bent on the accomplishment of that some end or All this might be provided for in the reaother. soning, by laying proper stress on the distinction

between the adaptation of parts for the end, and The latter, the adaptation of parts for an end.
in fact,
is

the only essential

of

consequent to the

antecedent

a purposing mind

and

from the

appearance of the latter we are entitled to infer By taking this distinction along this antecedent.
with us,

we come

to perceive

how

far the argu-

ment
24.

of final causes

may be
we

legitimately extended.

We

already understand then

how on having
in

seen one watch made,

are entitled to infer a

maker
its

for the second

it

watch

though

many

of

accessaries

may differ most

widely,

and there-

fore differ

most widely on the whole or as a compound first. With all these contingent variations in the two machines, there is one thing which they have in common adaptation of parts for the end of measuring and indicating time and this justifies the inference of a common antecedent even a purposing mind that had this But we contend that, in specific object in view. all sound logic, we are warranted to extend the inference farther not merely to a second watch but to a second machine of any sort, though its use or the end of its construction was wholly different
assemblage from the


148

MR. hu.me's objection

If, for example, mstead of from that of a watch. to mark a succession of served a mechanism which a mechanism which presented were hours, there

served to evolve a succession of musical harmonies,

we

artist in the

should just as confidently infer an intelligent one case as in the other, although we

had only seen the making of a watch, and never The truth is seen the making of an harmonicon. that it is not the particular end either of the one machine or the other, which leads to the inference of an intelligent maker ^but the inference rests nakedly and essentially on this, that there is Between adaptation of parts for any end at all.

one watch and another there

quent

is tiiis

common

conse-

adaptation of parts for the end; and on this

the conclusion
of
there'

we ground

having been

design and a designer in the fabrication of each of But between the watch and the musical them. apparatus there is also a common consequent not adaptation of parts for the end, but still

and on this we are equally warranted to ground the conclusion of design having been employed in the formation of each of The definite article is always comprethem.
adaptation for an end
;

hensive of the indefinite, so that whenever there But the there is always an end. is the end,
indefinite
is

not also

m the same way comprehensive

of the definite, so that in the case of an adaptation

having an end, it may not be the end which we have ever witnessed in the putting together of any former adaptation. Still it matters not. The inference, not of a

mind purposing the specific thmg for which we have formerly observed both a contrivance

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARCIMEKT. and a

149

contriver, but still of a mind purposing something or a purposing mind, is as legitimate as And so there lies enveloped in the watch ever.

this

consequent but

the

adaptation of parts for the

lies

enveloped there, the and the latter we end adaptation of parts for an music-box as well the in be distinctly perceive to

end

there

also

as in the time-piece.

When we
that

look to the latter

machine we

feel

sensible

we never

before

witnessed the putting forth of intelligence in the In this respect adaptation of parts for the end.
there

because we never before saw is novelty, a machine made for the performance of tunes. But we at the same time are abundantly sensible, that whether in the example of a watch or of something else,

we have a thousand times witnessed the putting forth of intelligence in the adaptation of In this respect there is no parts for an end.
novelty ; so that whether it be the watch that we have seen made or the music-box that we have not seen made, there is the same firm basis of a sure and multiplied experience on which to rest the

conclusion of an Intelligent

25. And thus it is that a special experience in watch-making to warrant the application of this argument from final causes
either to this or to

Maker for both. we do not even require

any other machines whatever. There may be a thousand distinct products of art and wisdom in which our observation has been restricted to the posterior, and has never reached to the prior term of the sequence that is, where we

have seen the product, and never either witnessed and yet we the production nor seen the producer

150

have a firm experimental basis on which to rest the inference, that a producer there was, and one too possessed of skill to devise and power to exeThe truth is that we every day of our lives, cute.

and perhaps every hour of each day, witness the adaptation of means to an end, in connexion with design and a designer though never perhaps to the end in any instance of hundreds of distinct machines which could be specified and which

therefore, are in this respect to us singular effects.'

But

still

each of these machines has in

it

adapta-

tion to

an end, as well as adaptation

it

to the

has in
cause

therefore that posterior term, of

end whose

connexion with the prior term of an intelligent

we have had

daily observation.

It is not,
.

we should remark, on the adaptation to any object quoad the end ^but on the adaptation to it quoad It is thus an end that the inference is grounded.

that though introduced for the

sight of a

first

time to the

watch or a gun-lock or a cotton-mill

or a steam-engine, we are as sure^ of intelUgence having been engaged in the execution of each of them as if we had been present a thousand times at The truth is that we have been their fabrication.
present

many thousand

times, though not at the

process of formation in either of these individual

pieces of mechanism, yet at other processes which

have enough in common Avith the former ones to make an experimental argument in every way as good. We have had lessons every day of our life, which to read what the chararteristics be of by
those arrangements that indicate a mind acting for

a purpose ; though not a mind acting for

the purpose.

TO THE

POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

\51

The conclusion is as good the This matters not. one way as tiie other the valid conclusion, if we will but reflect upon it, not of a subtle but of a

sound and substantial process of reasoning. 26. And if we can thus infer the agency of design in a watch-maker, though we never saw a v/atch made we can on the very same ground

agency of design on the part of a worldWe maker, though we never saw a world made. concede it to our adversaries, that, when reasoning
infer the

from the posterior term or consequent

to the prior

term or antecedent of a sequence, both terms must have been seen by us m conjunction on former occasions else we are not warranted to infer the one from the other of them. We are aware of the use which they make of this principle. They tell us that we cannot argue from a world ^because the world, if an effect, is a to a God singular effect that we have no experience in the making of worlds, as we may have in the making of watches that had we seen a world made and a God employed about it, then on being presented with another world, we might have inferred the and this agency of a God in the creation of it they contend to be the whole length to which our

experience can carry us.

distinction

But they overlook the

between what is essential in the consequent, and what is merely circumstantial therein The and it is here that the whole mistake lies. essential consequent we have seen produced or we have seen in conjunction with its proper antecedent a thousand times and thus it is, that we should confidently infer a designing artificer from the view

152

MR. Hume's objection

of a watch, though
in the

we had

just as

little

experience

making

of watches as

we have

in the

making

of worlds.

We may

never have seen a watch

made

but

in the watcli before

our eyes,
to

we
;

see

the manifest adaptation of

this v/e

means

an end

and

have frequently before vritnessed, as the

skill

posterior term of a sequence, in connexion v/ith

the forth-putting of sagacity and

of a purposing mind, as
its

on the part

prior term.

We

have

not seen the whole consequent

v^atchproduced by the maker ^but we have seen daily and familiarly that Avhich is in the watch, adaptation of means to an end, produced by that which is in the watch-maker, a designing intellect. These two terms we have

named a whole antecedent named a

v/atch

seen in constant conjunction in thousands of other

instances; and

we have therefore the warrant of a manifold experience for inferring that they were
conjoined in this instance also.

W^e carry the

inference no farther than to the

skill

and power of

the artificer.

It is this part

and

this only, that

we

make
maker

the antecedent to the observed consequent

before us.

We may

in contact with a

have never seen a watchwatch ^but we have often

seen the effort and

vient means.

skill of

a designing mind in

contact with the adaptation of useful and subser-

This has been a frequently observed sequence, from either term of which we may infer the other. Now the consequent of this sequence, the adaptation of useful and subservient means,
lies

enveloped in the watch

and we

infer that the

skill

antecedent in this sequence, the effect and

of

a designing mind, lies enveloped in a watch-maker

TO THE A POSTERIORI All(ir.MENT.

153

SO that though we should never have seen a watch made, and never seen a watch-maker employed in the formation of one, though we should

never have had this particular experience, yet we liave had experience enough to infer from the mechanism thereof the wisdom that presided over
the fabrication.
27. In the case of God and the world we have We only one term of the sequence before us. see the world but we have never seen God ; and

far less

have we ever seen

Him employed

in the

formation of a world.

We

never saw the whole

forth

consequent, a world actually emanated and brought by the whole antecedent a God. But both

in the

mechanism

of the world,
it

and

in the innu-

merable products wherev.ith

teems, do

we

sec the

adaptation of means to desirable ends and this we have seen emanated and brought forth in many hundreds of instances by a purposing uiind as its
strict

and proper antecedent.

It is

thus that

we

hold ourselves to be abundantly schooled, and that too on the basis not of a partial l>ut of a full experience, for the inference of a

God.

We

carry

the

argument

ilpvv'ard

fi'om

the
;

adaptations in

nature to a contriving intellect have often witnessed similar

just because

we
and

adaptations,

witnessed them too in conjunction with an antecedent wisdom that planned and that performed

them.

vation,

It is because we have had manifold obserand observation inclusive of both terms of the sequence, that from the one term in the present instance even the adaptations which nature oifers to our view, we infer the other term even a design-

G 2


154
MR. Hume's objectiok
ing mind, at whose will and by whose power and

wdsdom they have been

We have effectuated. being and into ordered nature whole never seen a may totality and entireness in its therefore w^iich be denominated to us a singular eiFeet just as on

the

first

sight of a watch, the

is

watch regarded as

a whole

to us

a singular

efiect.

But neither

with the one nor the other is there any singularity The singularity lies in the 'essential consequent. only in cejtain circumstantials which have properly

no part in the reasoning, and which for the proof of an antecedent wisdom in either case may be In that dismissed from the sequences altogether. which the mind strictly bears regard to in this argument there is no singularity. We have seen a multitude of times over that which is in the watch, accommodation of parts to a desirable end

and

whenever we had the opportunity of perceiving also the antecedent term, there was uniformly the mind of one who devised and purposed the end and so, on the pruiciple which gives truth to all our reasoning from experience, we infer the agency of such a mind in the formation

of a watch, though

it

witnessed.

And

the

be a formation that we never same of this world, though

we never saw

Our the formation of a world. present state gives us to see the posterior term Our even all of creation that is visibly before us.
past history hath not given us the opportunity of seeing the creation itseK or of seeing the anterior
term, even that agency by which it was effected. But in the course of our experience we have seen
adaptations

innumerable conjoined with a prior

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

155

agency that in every instance was the agency of a scheming and a skilful intellect and just as not from the watch but from the adaptations in it, so not from the world but from the adaptations in it, do we on the basis of an accumulated experience, reaching to both terms of many an actually observed

who contemplated and for which we behold so

28.

sequence, infer the existence of a world-maker, devised the various ends

manifest a subserviency of

parts in the universe around us.

After

all

then the

economy of atheism

would be a very strange one. We are led by the constitution of our minds to count at all times on
the uniformity of nature
that never deceives us.

and
We

it is

an expectation

are led to anticipate

the same consequents from the

same antecedents,

or to infer the same antecedents from the same

and we find an invariable harmony between the external truth of things and this inWithin the limits ward trust of our own bosoms. of sensible observation we experience no disappointment-- -and from such an adaptation of the mental
consequents
to the material,

we should not

only argue for the

existence of an intelligent Designer, but should hold it to be at once an indication of His benevolence, and His truth that He so ordered the

succession of

ail

objects

and events, as

to

make

of

it

an universal fulfilment to the universal conviction

which Himself had implanted in every human bosom. It were strange indeed if this lesson of nature's invar iableness which is so oft repeated, and which within the compass of visible nature has
never been found to deceive us, should only seiTO

J?>

^rn.

humf/s OBjEcrroN

to land us in

one great deception when we come to

reason from nature to nature's

universe with

God-or

that in

making that upv/ard step which

its

connects

the

originating cause, there should for

once and at
as

this great transition

be the disruption

of that principle whereof the whole universe, as far

we can

witness or observe, affords so glorious a

verification.

Throughout
find

all

the

phenomena

in

no exception to the constancy or the uniformity of sequences and it were truly marvellous if the great phenomenon of creation itself,
creation

we

offered the only exception to a law, which, through-

out

all

her diversities and

details,

exemplifies

or

she so widely

if,

while in every instance along

the world's history of a produced adaptation

find that there

we

have been contrivance and a contriver, the world itself with all the vast and varied adaptations which abound in it, instead of one
is

great contrivance,
necessity, or

either the product of blind

some random evolution of unconscious elements that had no sovereign mind either to
create or to control tliem.
29.

And

here

abstraction which

we may observe that the very we find to be necessary for the

vindication of our cause from the sceptical argu-

ment of Mr. Hume, is that, too, on which w^e might found one of the proper refinements of a rational Theism. To preserve our argument, we had to detach all the accessaries from that which is common to the w^orks of nature and of art, and so to generalize the consequent into adaptation for an end. In like manner should we detach all that is
but accessary from the authors of nature and art

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

loT

and so generalize the antecedent into that which is common to hoth, even an intelUgent and a purpos-

When we thus Kmit our view to the and proper consequent, we are led to limit it in like manner to the strict and proper anteceAll we are warranted to conclude of the dent. antecedent in a deduction thus generalized and This is purified is that it is purely a mental one. which man to and the alone likeness between God imaginations gross The the argument carries us. and of anthropomorphitism are done away by it reality the establish thus which w^e argument by the of a God, serves also to refine and rationalize our
insr

mind.

strict

conceptions of Him.
30. .It
is

thus then that

we would meet

the

argument by Hume, of this w^orld being a singular We have already said that though unable effect.
to demonstrate a primitive creation of matter,

we

have midit o

still

abundant evidence of a
its

primitive collocation of

parts.

God in the And we now

own
observaof

say that though unable to allege our

tion or presence

at the original construction

any natural mechanism though w^e never saw the hand of an artist employed in the placing and adaptation of parts for the end of any such mechanism yet, beholding as we do every day from our in-

fancy adaptations for an end, and that too in conjunction with an antecedent mind which devised

them

we
to

which

telligent

have really had experience enough on ground the inference of a living and inGod. On comparing a work of nature

with a work of

human
both

term common

to

art,

we

find a posterior

^not

adaptation for the end,

158

MiS. llU.MU's

OBJECTION

because each has its own specific use, and the one use is distinct from the other but adaptation for

an end.
that

It

is

on the strength of

this similarity

we can

carr}^

the inference of a designing

cause from the seen to the unseen in specimens of

human handiwork and, by a stepping-stone in every way as sure, from the seen handiwork of man In each we to the unseen handiwork of God.
;

behold not subserviency to the same end, but

subserviency to an end
the consequent of each,

and
we

on

this generality in

infer for

each an antece-

dent of like generality

wisdom

to devise,

mind of com.mensurate and of commensurate power to

not brute matter in lumpish
It

execute, either of the structures that are placed

before our eyes.

It is

and misshapen masses that indicates a deity. is matter in a state of orderly arrangement as
the great apparatus of the heavens
finely
;

in

or matter

more

and completely organized, as in the exquisite structures of the animal and vegetable kingdom. It is true we never saw such pieces of w-orkmanship made but we have seen other pieces made dissimilar to these only in the end of their fabrication, yet lilie unto these in subserviency to an end dissimilar therefore in that which is not essential to our argument, but similar in that which is fully sufficient for our argument. It is precisely in the

oversight of this distinction that the fallacy of the

atheistical

reasoning

lies.

The

singularity

that
to

has been charged upon the W'orld

certain

belongs

which have really no place in the premises of our argument, and are
circumstantial
things therefore not hidisnensable to the conclusion,
Ir


TO THE
A

POSTERIORI ARGUxMENT.
is

15^

Ihe essential premises there

no singularity.
is

The

formation of the whole world

that

like to in the

we have

ever witnessed

but

nothincr

forma-

tion of all that in the world holds out to us the

lesson of a Divinity, there

is

likeness to that which

we have

have, times and ways without number, had experience of both

often witnessed.

We

terms in the adaptation of parts to a?i end. It is this experience the experience of a completed sequence, that reason founds her concdusions. We

on

never with the eye of sense have perceived the actual emanation of a creature from the fiat of its
Creator. But we have often seen the succession between the working of a mind, and its workmanship, in a piece of fashioned and adjusted materialism.

And tlierefore it is that the thousand goodly complications which be on the face of our world the trees, and the flov*ers, and the insects, and the
earth,

feathered birds, and the quadrupeds that browse

and the fishes of the sea w^hose fit them for peopling that else desolate waste of mighty waters and lastly, amidst this general fulness both of animal and vegetable life, erect and intelligent man, curiously furnished in body and in mind, with aptitudes to all the objects of external nature, and which turn into a theatre of busy interest and enjoyment the crowded and the glowing scene over v.hich he expatiates
peculiar habitudes
;

upon the

therefore

it is,

we

say, that all bears so legibly the

spirit,

impress of a governing
31.

that all speaks in

reason's ear so loudly of a

God.
avoid the necessity of

By

this

reasoning

we

recurring to a

new

principle in order to repel or

160

MR, Hume's objection

ward off an assault of infidelity an expedient, which, unless the principle be very obvious in itself, gives an exceeding frailty to the argument,
and causes it to be received with distrust. Perhaps the tendency both of Reid and Stuart, was to an excessive multiplication of the original laws in our mental constitution, which they all the more
readily indulged, as
it

savoured so

much

of that

unshrinking Baconian philosophy, from the application of which to the science of mind, they augured
so sanguinely

and

in virtue of which,

unseduced

by the
in the

love of simplicity,

they would take their

lesson as to the

number of ultimate facts whether world of mind or matter from observation

alone.

Now

it

is

weJl

to

acquiesce

in

every

phenomenon, like that of magnetism, as if it v, ere a distinct and ultimate principle of which no further account can meanwhile be given so long

as

it

withstands
it

all

the attempts of analysis to

resolve

into

another phenomenon of a more

general and comprehensive quality.

But

this is

very different from a gratuitous multiplication of

and more especially from the conof one before unheard of till framed for the accomplishment of a special service. It appears to be a resting of the theistical argument on a very precarious foundation, when the inference of design from its effects, is made a principle sui generis instead of making it vvhat it really is one case out of the many, \\ here by a principle more comprehensive, we, on the recurrence of the same consequent as before, infer the same antecedent
first principles,

fident

affirmation

as before.

We

deprecate the introduction of such

TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.

161

an auxiliary as calculated to give a mystical and

arbitrary character to the Philosophy of Religion;
afid
it is

hold

it

a far better offering to the cause,

to rest

when

on no other principles palpably made than those which are recognised and read of all men.

CHAPTER
On
1.

V.
World
is

the Hypothesis that the

Eternal.

But

after all

it

may be

asked, Is the world an

and might not the whole train of its present sequences have gone on in perpetual and unvaried order from
effect ?
it

May

not have lasted for ever

In our reasoning upon antecedents and consequents, we have presumed that the world
all

eternity ?

is

a consequent.

be thought

then

Could we be sure of this, it may on the principle of our last

its

chapter, let the adaptation of

parts to so

many

thousand desirable objects be referred, and on the

basis of a multiplied experience too, to a designing

cause as

its

strict

and proper antecedent.

But

how do we know
all ?
it

the world to be a consequent at

Is there any greater absurdity in supposing have existed as it now is, at any specified point of time throughout the millions of ages that

to

are past, than that

ment

it shoidd so exist at this moDoes what we suppose might have been

then, imply

any greater absurdity, than what we Now might not actually see to be at present?

162

ox THE NON-ETERNITY OF

the same question he carried back to any point or period of duration however remote or, in other

words, might not

world,

we

dispense with a beginning for

.Such a consequent as our
really be,

the world altogether ?

if

consequent

it

would require,
its

it

might be admitted, a designing cause or

cedent.

ante-

But why recur

to the imagination of its

being a consequent at all?

Why

not take for

granted the eternity of its being, instead of supposing it the product of another, and then taking And, after for granted the eternity of his being ? all, it may be thought, that the eternity of our

world

is

but one gratuitous imagination instead of

two and, as to the difficulty of conceiving, this is a difficulty which we are not freed from by the Can w^e any more comprehend theory of a God. we can the past eternity of than eternity, past His matter the everlasting processes of thought any

more than the everlasting processes of a material economy a circulation of feeling and sentiment and purpose and effect that never had commencement in an aboriginal mind than a circulation of
;

planets, or that orb of revolution

which is described by water through the elements of air and earth and ocean, or thially the series of animal and vegetable generations, never having had com,

mencement

an aboriginal mundane system. At this rate, the supposition of an intelligent Creator may only be a shifting of the difficulty, from an eternal Nature to an eternal Author of Nature. If Nature is clearly made out to be a consequent,
in

might be admitted, that the adaptations which abound' in it r)oint to an intelligent and
then
it


THE PRESENT ORDER OF THINGS.
designing cause.

103

But

this

remains to be proved
it is

and

till

this is done,

it is

contended, that

just

as well to repose in the imagination of Eternal

Harmonies in a Universe, as of Eternal Harmonies in the mind of One who framed it. 2. On this subject we have nothing to quote from Mirabaud, whose work on the System of Nature though characterized more by its magniloquence than
its

power

its

magnificence,

its

plausibility than

is fitted

by

its

gorgeous generalizations

on nature and truth and the universe, to make tremendous impression on the unpractised reader. There is a certain phraseology which has on some minds the effect of a sublime and seducing eloquence, while
it

excites in others a sensation of

if

utter distaste as

absolutely oversatiated with

vapidity and verbiage.

;

This work
for

is

one of the
fifty

and products of Germany known well been has years

Europe.
of late
Its circulation

upwards of

in the

Continent of

has been
of our

by the
is,

infidel press

where it

we understand,

much extended own country working mischief among

the half-enlightened classes of British society. know nothing of the history of its author. In real

We

strength and staple of thought he is a mere sentimental weakling when compared with Hume, from whose Dialogues on Natural Religion we shall give one or two extracts on the argument now in
question.
3.

" Eor aught we can know a priori^ matter

may

contain the source or spring of order originally within itself as well as mind does ;. ad there is no

more

difficulty in

conceiving that the several ele-

164

ON THE NON-ETERNITY OF

ments from an internal unknown cause may fall into the most exquisite arrangement, than to conceive that their ideas in the great universal

mind

from a like internal unknown cause fall into that The equal possibility of both these arrangement. Again ^' If the masuppositions is allowed."

terial

world rests upon a similar ideal world,

this

ideal world

must

rest

without end.
look beyond

It

on were better therefore never to

so

upon some other ; and

material w^orld.
its

the

present

By
order

supposing
within

it

to contain the principle of

itself,

the sooner
the better.

we really we arrive at

assert

it

to

be God; and

that divine Being so

much

When you go
it

one step beyond the

mundane system, you

humour, which
is

only excite an inquisitive

impossible ever to satisfy.

To

reason of the Supreme

say that the different ideas v.hich compose the fall into order of themselves

and by their own nature, is really to talk without any precise meaning. If it has a mearing, I would fain know, why it is not as good sense to say, that
the parts of the material world
fall

into order of

themselves and by their

own

nature.

Can

the

one opinion be
so ?"
itself

Lastly

" An
;

intelligible while the other is

not

ideal

system arranged of
is

without a precedent design

not a vrhit
its

more

explicable than a material which attains

order in like

manner

nor

is

there any

more

diffi-

culty in the latter supposition than in the former."

" A mental world or universe of ideas requires a cause as much, as does a material w^orld or universe of objects
;

and

if

similar in its arr^ngerop-nt

mus^. require a similar cause,"

THE PRESENT OKDUR OF THINGS.

4.

165

This

is

very distinctly put

and we think

admits of as distinct and decisive a reply.

Atheist does not perceive vrhy a material
as exemplified
in

The
into

economy
fall

the world

might not

order of

itself,

as well as a mental

economy

as

exemplified

in

God.
is,

between the two

shall

that

The precise difference we have had proof, as we

attempt to show, of a commencement to our present material economy we have had no such

proof of a commencement to the mental economy

which may have preceded

the question,
things into
its

it.

There

is

room

for

how came
it

the material system of

present order?

because

we have
for

reason to beheve that

order from eternity.
the question,

has not subsisted in that

is

There

no such room

why might

not the material have

fallen into its present order of itself, as well as the

is conceived to have gone before it ? have no reason to l)eheve that this mental economy ever was otherwise than it now is. The latter question presumes that the mental did .fall

mental that

We

into order of itself,

that the Divinity

or which is the same thing, had a commencement. In the

material

eyes of
of
its

economy we have the vestiges before our having had an origin, or in other words being a consequent and we have furtherits

more the experience that in every instance which comes under full observation of a similar consequent, that
the
is

of a consequent

which involved as

mundane order

of things does so amply, the

adaptation of parts to an end, the antecedent was a purposing mind which desired the end, and
devised the means for
its

accomplishment.

We

1()6

ON THE NON-ETERNITY OF

might not have been called upon to ma.ke even a single ascent in the path of causation, had the world stood forth to view in the character or aspect But instead of this, both history of iinmutabilit}'.

and observation
to

tell

of a definite

commencement

the present

order

or,

in

other words, they

in reasoning

oblige

us to regard this order as the posterior

;

term of a sequence
prior term, just

and we,

on the

follow the lights of experience

when we move upward from

telligent

the world to an init.

mmd

carries us

It is this which backward one step from the world to

that ordained

God

and the reason why we do not continue the

God
is,

retrogression beyond

that

we have

not met

with an indication of his having had a commence-

ment.
tions

In the one case there

is

a beginning of the
solid
it

present material system forced upon our convic;

and we proceed on the

experience,

when

v.e infer that

ground of begun in the

is

devisings of an antecedent mind.

In the other case,

the case of the antecedent mind, there

beginning forced upon our convictions

therefore that
It is

no such and none

for.

we

are called

upon

to

account

our part as far as in us

;

lies

to explain

an
for

ascertained difficulty

but not surely to explain an

imagined one.
called

We

must have some reason

believing in the existence of a difficulty ere

we

are

upon

to solve

it.

We

have ample reason for

regarding this world as a posterior term, and seeking

after its antecedent.

But we have no such reason

for treating this antecedent as a posterior term,

and seeking
cedent.

term in a higher anteThe one we see to be a changeable and

for its prior

THE PRESENT ORDER OF THINGS.

167

The other for aught we know a necent world. may be an unchangeable and everlasting God. So that when the question is put .Why may not

the material

economy
is,

fall

into order of itself, as

well as the mental which

it?

our

we

affirm to
far

have caused
this

reply

that so

from

mental
yet to
all.

economy

falling into order of itself,

it

we have

learn that

ever had to

fall

into order at

The one

order, the material,

been from everlasting. which by all experience and analogy must have preceded the material, bears no symptom which we can discover, of its ever having required any remoter economy to call it into being. 5. At the same time we must admit that on this question between the eternity of matter and the eternity of mind, there has been advanced, on the
lation

we know, not to have The other, the mental,

Theistical side of the controversy, a deal of specu-

and argument with which our understandings all coalesce. We have already stated the reasons of our having no confidence in the a priori argument although both Sir Isaac Newton and Dr. Samuel Clarke were employed, we believe,
do not at

in the construction of
is

it.

But besides

this,

there

a world of not very certain metaphysique

we do

about the necessity of mind to originate motion in the universe and that v/ere there nought but matter all space would be alike filled with it, and all would be inert and immoveable. We have
think,

already given one specimen of this gratuitous style

of arguing from AYollaston

and

without offering

any more from other

v/riters of that period,

we

may

state that in the general

^^feel no sympathy


168

ON THE NON-ETERNITY OF

much which has been written There appears on the side of Natural Rehgion. for example to be nothing substantial or eiFective in that reasoning which is founded on the comparison' between mind in the abstract and matter in the abstract or which, on the bare existence of matter apart from its collocations, would conclude the
of understanding with

necessity of an antecedent Intelligence to originate

it

into being.

The

palpable argument for a

God

as grounded on the
lies,

phenomena

of visible nature

not

in

the existence of matter,

its

but in the
to

arrangement of
the conclusion
is

parts a firmer stepping-stone than the mere entity of that which

to the previous entity of that

corporeal

is

which

is spiritual.

To

us

it

marks

far

more

intelligibly

the voice of a God, to have called forth the beauteous and beneficent order of our world from the womb of chaos, than to have called forth the

substance
nonentity.

of

our world from the chambers

of

We

knovv

that
it

the

voice

of

God

called forth both.

But

is

which sounds so audibly and Of the other w(> have been ear.

distinctly in

one of those voices Reason'^

told,

and we

think needed to be told by Revelation. ^not 6. The question to be resolved then is whether the matter of tlie v.orld, but whether the

present order of the Avorid had a commencement ? Of the various reasons which might be 7. alleged in favour of such a commencement, there
are some that

we would advance with much

others.

greater

confidence

than

There

is

one by Dr.

Paley which does not appear to us satisfactory

and

in his

staten^t

of which,

we

think that for

THE PRESENT OKDER OF THINGS.

ouce he
is

169
in k'S

metaphysically obscure.
it

He,

forward as a general position, that wherever wo meet with an organic

structure where there
is

Natural Theology, brings

the adaptation of compliits

cated means to an end, the cause for

being must

be found out of
at
least,

This, does not carry the instant assent of

itself.

itself

and apart from

a proposition that announces at once evidence. Neither, although we think

impressive consideration, would

its
it

own

a very

we insist on the attempted to be proved, that although the existence of each organic being can be accounted for by derivation from a parent
argument by which
it is

of
to

its

own

likeness

yet we are not on that account

as
if

acquiesce in the imagination of an infinitude

the whole race,
the line of successive
eternity.

for

generations

reached backward to

It

does seem as irrational so to conclude, as to say of an iron chain which ascends perpendicularly

from the surface of our earth, and at its higher extremity was too distant for vision, that each link was sustained by the one immediately above it, and that simply if the whole had no termination each would have a support of this kind and so the whole be supported. It seems as impossible that there should be an eternal race of men or animals,

upwards from our If there be good reason for the belief, that there must be a suspending power for the whole chain at whatever
as that a chain rising infinitely

earth should hang upon nothing.

height

it

may be

conceived to go

there

is

at least

the semblance of as good reason for the behef, that

there

must be a prime originating power

I.

for the

VOL.

170

ON THE NON-ETERNITY OF
race,

whole
its

however remote the

antiquity

of
at

origin.

But even

this

consideration
as

we

present shall forego

thinkmg

we do

that the

non-eternity of our animal and vegetable

rests

races

upon a basis of proof certainly as firm as this, and greatly more palpable. The recency of 8. This proof is of two kinds.

the present order of things the recency of the world, meaning by this term not the matter in

respect to being, which forms

the dispositions of matter,
plified in the structures of the

its

substratum; but

more

especially as

exem-

animal and vegetable

the its existing economy* commencement of the world in this sense of it may be learned, either from the evidence of history or

kingdoms, which form

the evidence of observation.

If there

have been

creation,

it

belongs to the order of historical

events,

and

like

any other such event might be-

come

the subject of an historical testimony the authority of which might be tried by the rules and

In these between this respect there is no two facts the origin of a world and the origin of a kingdom. They are ahke susceptible of being made known by competent and contemporaneous witnesses, and of being transmitted downward on
decided by the judgment of ordinary criticism.
difference

a pathway of oral or written tradition

tinuity of

the

con-

which and the credibihty of which are

ahke cognizable, by the versant in that species, This evidence is distinct from that of erudition. of direct and scientific observation, just as the

"The proper and original

meaning

in fact botli of the

Greek

m*9fMs

and tho Latin mnndtu.

THE PRESENT ORDER OF THINGS.

171

evidence of a record for some bygone event is distinct from that of our senses. We might have
to the precise year of the building of a house, or we might be satisfied by mai'ks and appearances of which we have the
last

documentary information as

immediate eyesight, that it was built wkhin the century. In like manner we might have
if

evidence,

not for the precise year or century at

visible things

which the present system of

together, at least for
all

was put

that

we

are in quest of as

connected with our present argument that it was put together at some time. The historical evidence for a commencement to the present order of the
material world
is

all

that

we

shall notice in this

postponing our view of its observational evidence to the next book, when we treat of the proofs for the being of a God in the
dispositions of matter.

preliminary chapter

lost sight of,

one principle which should never be investigating the Evidence of Religion, or indeed any evidence which relates to
9.
is

There

when

questions of fact. mean the sound and sterling quality of that evidence which is either historical or experimental. The truth is, that the historical,

We

when good and genuine,

experimental.
of our

resolves itself into the

is,

The

only difference
it

that instead

own

observation,

substitutes the observa-

tion of others. receive by our ears what we are assured by the diagnostics of credible testimony, that they have seen by their eyes. Historical

We

evidence has thus the character

as
it is

and, in proportion

substantiated, should have the effect of the observational. Origmally, it is the evidence of

172
sense

ON THE NON-ETERNITY OF

and

no one can question the paramount

all

authority of this evidence over

of speculation.
It
is

the plausibilities

a very obvious principle,

although often forgotten in the pride and prejudice

of controversy, that

what has been seen by one

is

pair of

human

eyes

of force to countervail all

that has been reasoned or guessed at

by a thousand
is

human

understandings.

This
all

is

just the Baconian

principle in science

and

we want
it

the scru-

pulous and faithful application of

to religion.

In

this

we would have

religion to

make common
any of

cause with philosophy

and,

in the formation of

our creed,

we should feel

as little inclined as

philosophy's most enhghtened disciples to build an

an unsubstantial foundation no more want to devise or excogitate a system by any creative exercise of our own, than the most patient of those physical inquirers who question nature in their laboratories; and, upon a single adverse response, would dispost the theory of a whole millennium from its ascendancy over the They seek for truth on the field of exschools. periment alone and, if.not able to stand this ordeal,
airy hypothesis on

We

neither the beauty of an opinion nor the inveteracy

of
its

long possession will save

it

from

its

over-

throw.

Such
is

is

the deference which they; and

such also
of fact,
it

the deference which

we would render
In every question

to the authority of observation.

is

all in all.
is

It is so in the things of

science

it

so

in

things of sacredness.

We
of

would look
sit in

at both, not through the

medium
whether

imagination but of evidence

^nd

that,

we

judgment on a question of our own

science.

THE PRESENT ORDER OF THINGS.

or on a question of geology

173
invest!

whether

we

gate the past history and present state of the

divine administration, or investigate the past physical history

and actual

state of our globe.

In either,

we

should deem the real findings of one

man

to

be of more value than the splendid fancies of a thousand men. ^in the latter science, we may 10. For example have one doctrine on the degradation of the hills, and another on the encroachment or regress of the sea, and another on the relation between the position of the strata and the character of the fossil remains to be found in them. Of the last of these

it is

evident, that the results of theory

must give

way

to the results of observation, should they stand

opposed to each other; and in reference to the two first it is obvious, that there might be an evidence of history which should overbear the speculation. For instance had we the authentic memorials of a trigonometrical survey taken two thousand years back, and with the same securities for its correctness that we have in the surveys of the present day, who would not prefer the informations of such a document to all the plausibilities It were in the very spirit of all the speculatists ? of our modern science to learn of the height of our mountains and the line and locality of our shores, from the men who had then measured rather than from the men who v/ere now arguing them and it

is

just a recognition of the great principle that all

the philosophy of actual being in the universe, to

be

solidly established,

facts

when we

must

rest

on the basis of

affirm that the doctrines of science

174

ON THE NON-ETERNITY OF
if

want an indispensable prop,

11.
It
is

they are not found

that

to quadrate with the sure depositions of history.

thus,

we

think,

in

the

strict

philosophy of the question, the geological speculations of our

day should come under the tribunal,

to

or be brought
history.

the

touchstone

of authentic

At a time when

those physical characters

of,

are so confidently spoken

which have been

sculptured on rock, as

it

were, by the finger of

nature, and wherewith she hath recorded the anti-

quity and revolutions of the globe

we

are not to

overlook those characters which have been trans-

mitted to us from past ages on the vehicle of

present world.
credible

human
some

testimony, deponing perhaps to the recency of our

We mean

to affirm that

if

and authentic memorial of history stands in the way of any theory, there is violence done to the philosophy of observation when such an element is not disposed of, and perhaps not so much as adverted to. It is not a comprehensive \iew which is taken of the question, by those who run waywardly and unbridled on some track of speculation, and who bhnk any of the evidence that legitimately bears upon it. In questions of fact,

history,
truth,
is
is

when marked with

the usual signatures of

not only a competent, but in most instances

If

the best voucher that can be appealed to.

the Baconian logic require that one's

own

observaequally

tion should give the law to his o\^'n fancy,

it

requires that the observation or the findings of one

man should
history
is

give law to the fancy of another.

Now

the vehicle on which are brought to us

the observations of other men, whether the path

THE PRESENT ORDER OF THINGS.

over which
it

175

has travelled be a distance in space

or a distance in time

that

is,

whether they whose

the

observations

it

bears to us

ai'tj

men
if

of other

countries, or of by-gone ages.

is

History

not direct
if

at least derivative observation;

is

and

rightly

derived

only observation at a distance instead of

observation on the spot.

solid philosophy,
that, to
if

There

is

an end of
aside

all

such evidence
for the

is set

and
own
tells

make room
spirit,

mere wantonness of the

fain substitute its
ail

human

that

would

creations

in

the

place of

which observation
this

distinctly points out, or

which history audibly

of the creation by God.

At

rate the fair

domain

of science

is

again laid open, as in the days

of the schoolmen, to the misrule, the wild vagaries

of unchastened imagination.
12.

Hence
all

it is

that in the exceeding dimness of

light,

reason or of nature's
value for

we do

feel the

utmost

those historical notices, which serve

had a beginning. Among and between the plausibilities which can be alleged on either side of this question between an eternal universe whose laws and processes are now as they have ever been, and an eternal God who hath ordained these laws and still overrules these processes there is no evidence that we should more desiderate than what may be called the observational. We shoidd like the question to be rescued from the obscurity of metaphysique and that the clear experimental light of authentic and credible history were shed over it. If from the documents and vestiges of other times, there could be collected even so much as the bare
to indicate that the world

the ambiguities of natural theism,

176
fact,

ON THE NON-ETERNITY OF
that,

somehow

or

other the world had

beginning, this would

make room

for the argu-

ment of its having begun in the devices of a mind that had an aim and a purpose in the formation of it. Let it in this Vv ay be made out that the world really is a consequent and then from what we observe of this consequent we might reason to an antecedent ^from the adaptations which abound in it to objects that are palpable, might we reason to a mind which designed such adaptations because

from the beauties and most orderly arrangement, might we reason to an Intelligent Being who had the Taste to conceive what is lovely, and the Benevolence to institute what is useful, and both the Power and the Wisdom to frame a mechanism which moved in such exquisite harmony, and wrought off so abundant a happiness to that host of sentient creatures who are on the surface of our Earth. Let there only be evidence, whether in nature or in history, by which to get quit of the
it

desired

such objects
its

the benefits of

hypothesis that this world with

all its

present laws

and harmonies must be eternal

and then, on the

stepping-stone of a world so beauteously ordered

and so bountifully filled, might we rise to the sound hypothesis of an Eternal Mind from whom this universe is an emanation. This would give full introduction to the reasonings a posteriori carrying us at once from the indications of design to a primary designer. All that is needed

is

satisfactory evidence that these indications are

not from Eternity

for

that

the curious mechanism,

example, of our bodies hath not alw ays existed,


THE PRESENT ORDEK OF THINGS.
177
to another

and been transmitted down v.ards from one generation by a law which hath been everlastingly in operation in a word that things have not con-

tinued to be as they are at present,

fact of a

we
are

shall

not
in

say from the beginning of the Creation, for the

quest of

Creation
^l)ut

is

that which

we

now

that they have not

so been

from
is

Eternity.
13.

But

ere proceeding farther,

there

still

another principle which

in the

we would here

interpose,

shape of a lemma, on the general doctrine

of the Evidences.

Whatever strength there may

to

be in the argument for the theology of revelation,

it

makes a

clear addition

the

argument

for

certain propositions in the theology of nature

such as the being of a God, and the immortality

of the soul.

Now,

there

is

a certain habit or

order

of

conception

among
to

religion,

which serves

the advocates of throw a disguise over the

real strength of the cause.

We

often, in the first

place,

read of Christianity as being based upon

as if it was on the preliminary establishment of the one that the other was founded. But, in the second place, it is held preposterous

natural religion,

and

illogical, to discuss

the theism of nature on any

other reasons than those which are furnished

the light of nature. the one
as

by

Now,
at the

this habit

of viewing

the foundation and the other as the

superstructure

and

their evidences as wholly distinct

same time of treating and independent

of each other, has

had the
f r
is,

effect,

we should

say, of

unnecessarily weakening the defences of religion.

What we contend

that

it

is logically

a cora-

h2

178

ON THE NON-ETERNITY OF

petent thing, to take,

if we may so term it, of the cement which goes to consolidate the structure, and that for the purpose of giving firmness and sohdity to the foundation. For example, whatever of evidence there might be for the authority of the Jewish Scriptures, we have a right to

appropriate for the support of natural theology, in

as far as
its

doctrines enter into the contents or

of

informations
succession

that

volume.
it

If,

instead

of a

of Jewish,

had been

an

equally

numerous and creditable succession of authors in any other nation, we should have made this use of them. Had there been a continuous chain of credible and well-supported testimony, passing upward through a series of approved and classical each writers in Rome, and Greece, and Egypt reiterating from their predecessors a consistent

testimony regarding a succession

of patriarchs,

and a flood

in the early ages of the world,

creation at the outset

been admitted to most important witness Now, what we contend

to the force

and a would have the proof, and been held as a

their history

in the question of
is,

a Deity. a proof

thac

however insensible
it

and the value of

less valid

which we actually possess

criticism
it

not the

answers a double

sound by or impressive, that makes purpose or that

and,
all
it

this is

once for the leading truths of natural theology, and for the peculiarities both of the Jewish
at
It is at all times comand the Christian faith. petent for us to discuss the existence of God as a separate proposition and to fetch from every

quarter,

where evidence

can be found,

all

the

THE PRESENT ORDER OF THINGS.

179

arguments, whether of reason or of testimony, Though which can be brought to bear upon it.
natural religion should be indeed the basis, and
Christianity but the erection which springs from
it

still

it

may

so happen, that from one

and the

for the

same source there might be extracted a material consolidation of both and so the whole fabric of religion may suffer by our restricting our-

selves to a partial instead of

full

use of that
for

material.

If

the

testimonies

we have

the

recency of our world as

now

constituted,

would

have been so eagerly seized upon, in behalf of natural theism, had they come to us through the
channel of secular or profane history
are not to lose the service of
auxiliaries to our cause, unless

then,

we

them even
it

as present

can be shown to
or

us in what

way they have become impotent

worthless, by their having descended to us through

the channel of sacred history.

in

We

thus hold, that

virtue of the artificial process

by which the

whole argument has been conducted, there has been created what we should call an artificial
scarcity of
religion.

argument for the doctrines of natural For there is no real scarcity. On the
rise to the observational

firm and frequent stepping-stones of a sustained

history,

we may

evidence

and a Creator but, by the generai practice of our guides and conductors, we are kept at the present stage of our inquiries, from entering upon this path. The fact of creation is strictl} an historical one, and is therefore susceptible of being proven by historical evidence, if such is to be
of a creation


180
found.

ON THE NON-ETERNITY OF

And by

all

the signatures of valid or in-

corrupt testimony, v/e are directed to a place and a people, among whom the registers both of crea-

Yet on the and providence were deposited. these question, preliminary as a existence of God, we sight and of kept out are credentials leading
tion

are presented instead, with but the secondary or

them in the oral traditions and other people, or the dying and distant echoes of nations that had been scattered It is thus that abroad over the face of the world. the fundamental demonstrations and doctrines in a
shadowy
reflections of

of other places

course of theology are

made

to lack of that strength

We go in purdim or mythological allusions, to be found and should we catch at some in heathen writers remote semblance of the Mosaic story, whether in the literature of Greeks or Hindoos, we rejoice over it as if a treasure more precious than all that
which
rightfully belongs to them.
suit of
;

we

possess.

Now, whatever semblance may be

found there, the substance of this argument is to be found in the succession of Jewish and Christian We ask no special indulgence for them. writers.

We
as

all

should like them to be tested in the same way other authors and, ere they are admitted as
;

the chroniclers of past ages, to pass through the

ordeal of the same criticism that they do.

It is

we would marks, what may be

thus that

trace

by

its

successive land-

called the great central stream

commencement of our existing world to the present day and it is only thus that our minds can be adequately
of that history which stretches from the

THE PRESENT ORDER OF THINGS.

181

possessed with the richness and power of the historical evidences for a
*

God.*

Of the coincidences between profane authors and the Mosaic history, we have a very good precis in the 16th Section of tho 1st Book of " Grotius on the Truth of the Christian Religion"
with a copious exemplification in the footnotes which are appended tending to show that the most ancient tradition among all to it nations is exactly agreeable to the religion of Moses. In support of this he quotes from the remains of the Phoenician histories, from the accounts transmitted to us of the Indians and Egyptians, from tho traditions preserved both in Greek and L itiu and Jewish and Christian writers, of whom, from the stores of his vast and varied erudition, he presents us with many interesting specimens. The notices which he collects from these multifarious sources 'respect chiefiy tlie chaos out of which our present system was formed, the framing of animals, the creation of man after the divine image and the dominion given to him over the creatures, the energy of the divine word in the production of all things, the priority of

darkness to light, the infusion of life into all that is vital by the Spirit of God, the formation of man from the matter of the earth, the division of time into weeks, with the special honour rendered by various distinct nations to the seventh day. In further corroboration of the harmony between profane and sacred history, we are presented with allusions to the primitive nakedness of our race, to the innocence and simplicity and happiness of a golden age, to the history respecting Adam's fall and the great longevity of the patriarchs. To these must be added the almost universal tradition of a deluge with many gleanings of ancient authorship about its minuter particulars, as the ark in which a few of our race were preserved and other species of animals, tho place on which it rested, the sending forth from it of a dove and a raven. Besides these, resemblances can be traced between the current legends of various writers on the one hand, and on the other the scriptural narratives of the tower of Babel and the rite of circumcision, the histories of Aluaham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses, the later scriptural nanMtives which respect Elijah, Elisha and Moses. It is well that in these shadowy reflections, there is none of that incongruity with sacred history which can affect the truth and authority of its informations. But when we consider the weight and number of the immediate testimonies that we possess in support of these informations, the continuity and strength of their evidence, the marks both internal and external which demonstrate the authenticity of the Bible, we cannot but regard it as a mai'vellous phenomenon, that inquirers should feel tho satisfaction as of a stronger evidence in these hazy reflections ol the truth, than when they view it in its own direct and primary

radiance.

182
14.

ON THE NON-KTERNITV OF

We
are

are far from meaning to insinuate that,

beside the direct testimony of the sacred volumes,

there

not other

memorials of the world's

such even within the range of Nature's discernments of a recent Creation, or at least of
v/liich

recency

are worthy of our regard

probabilities,

first

(however remote) origin of Things as might

serve to demonstrate that

we

live

in

the midst

of a derived and not of an everlasting system

most exquisite structures which and the admiration of beholders are in the only important sense of the term consequents, and that no other antecedent can be found for them than the Hat of an intelligent Creator. There have many such vestiges been collected and apthat
of
tlie

many

arrest the eye

pealed to, such as the recency of science the Hmited range of our historical traditions, mounting upwards to only a few thousand years the vast

capacity of the species for general or collective

improvement contrasted with the little progress which they have yet made, and which marks it is supposed but a comparatively modern origin to the

human

family
its

the

expansive force of population,

still

and yet

shortness

from the territory and

resources of a globe, that could accommodate so

many hundreds more of

These and
indicated
several
history of nations,

millions upon its surface more taken chiefly from the and the migration of tribes as

by the spread and the similarity of cognate languages, have been much insisted on for the purpose of building up an argument, and
strengthening
desolating
the
barrier

against

the tide of

Atheism.

They

are of

some

value,

THE PRESENT OHDER OF THINGS.

\H3

we

admit.

It is well that,
of,

if

not very great or

are
at
least in

sensible

confirmations

they

coincidence with the main narrative.

They shed
they showlight of

a fainter light on

the question, but

is

nothing opposite to what

the direct testimonies.
15. After
all,

shown by the

they are the direct testimonies,

handed down from one to another in the stream of Jewish and Christian Authors, which constitute the main strength and solidity of the historical argument for the historical fact of a Creation. There might be fitter occasions for entering into the detail of this Evidence but we hold it not out

of place to notice even at present the strong points

of

it.

In tracing the course upwards from the

present day,
truth
of the

we

arrive

by a firm and continuous

series of authors at that period,

when not
is

only the

Christian

story

guaranteed

thousands of dying martyrs

but

when

the

by Old

Testament Scriptures, these repositories of the

Jewish story, obtamed a remarkable accession to then* evidence vhich abundantly compensates for
their remoteness
to the
split

from our present age.

or,
v,

We allude
two
bitterly

that took place between two distinct

and independent
adverse bodies of

stronger

still,

itnesses at the outset of the

The publicity of the New Christian economy. Testament miracles the manifest sincerity of those who attested them as evinced by their cruel

sufferings in the cause, not of opinions which they

held to be true, but of facts which they perceived

by

their senses

the

silence of inveterate
if

and im-

passioned enemies most willing,

they could, to

184

ON THE NOX-ETERNITY OF

have transmitted the decisive refutation of thorn to

modern times

these

compose the main

strei

t^ih.

of the argument, for our later Scriptures.

then, beside the references in which they
to the

And
abound

former Scriptures

and

by which,

in fact,

they give the whole weight of their authority to

the Old Testament

we have the superadded

now ranged
Faith,

testi-

mony
upon

of an entire nation,

in zealous

hostility against
its

the

Christian

and bent

overthrow.

They who

are conversant in

who have reflected most on the Philosophy of E\idence, know well how to estimate the strength which hes in a concurrence of testithe practice, or

monies where collusion is impossible and still more where one of the parties, inflamed with hatred and
;

rivalship against the other, could almost choose to

disgrace themselves for the sake of involving their

adversaries in disgrace and discredit

along with

which stamps a character and a credit on the archives of the Jewish history, whereof it were vain to seek another exemplification over again in the whole compass of q^-udition. These memorials of our race, which they had no interest
them.
It is this

in

preserving

for,

mainly,

they were

but the

own perversity and dishonour, had been handed down to them by uncontrolled tradition from former ages and were now embodied in the universal faith of the people. And when the
records of their
;

two great parties diverged, however widely asunder

in every other article of belief

they held

a firm

agreement
here

in this, the perfect integrity of at least

the historical Scriptures.

Had

there been a juggle

why

did not an enraged priesthood stand forth

THE PRESENT ORDER OF THINGS.

to

185

expose

it

that along with

it

they might expose

the weakness of that alleged prophecy which formed

one great pillar of the Christian argument ? How, heated partizanship, did not the secret break out of an imposition on the crein the fierce conflicts of this

dulity of

mankind,
fell

if

imposition there was ?

and
who

out of this

warfare

among

the impostors

were

palming upon the world the miracles of the present or the memorials of the past, ought not
for

would have swept the imposture of both religions from the face of the earth? It says every thing for the truth both of the Christian story and of the He-

that very effervescence to have arisen which

brew records, that they survived this hurricane ; and more especially that, ere the observances of the Mosaic ritual were done away, so strong a demonstration should have been given of the national faith in those documents by which the solemnities
of the Jewish religion w^ere incorporated with the
facts of the

Jewish history.

The

virtue of

an

Passover to authenticate the narrative in which it took its profest origin, and of which it is the standing memorial, has been ably
institution like the

we

expounded by LesHe and others. It is thus that are carried upwards through a medium of
or

historic light to the times of the Patriarchs

even though we ascend not the ladder, but abide as it were at the bottom of it, we shall find in the
Jev/s of the present day, the characteristics of a singular race which bespeak them to be a monu-

ment

of old revelations.

their separate identity, as

They have maintained no other nation ever did,

among

the tempests and the fluctuations in which


186

ON THE NON-ETERNITY OF

they have been cradled for two thousand years

and now stand before us as a living evidence of their past story and an evidence along with it, that

throughout the long succession of those

moils which
politics of
lias

fitful

tur-

have taken place in the wars and

our world for so many centuries there been indeed the controlling agency of a God mixed up with the history of human affairs.
16.

Kow

the truth of the continuous narrative

which forms the annals of this wondrous people would demonstrate a great deal more than what we at present are in quest of that the world had a
beginning

or

rather

that

many

of the world's

present organizations had a beginning, and have

not been perpetuated everlastingly from one gene-

by those laws of transmission which now prevail over the wide extent of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. We hold the Jewish Scriptures to be authentic memorials of this fact and although we might afterwards find a better place for the contents both of the Jewish and Christian revelations yet v,e cannot forbear, amid all that is imagined about the sufficiency of
ration to another

the natural argument, to offer our passing

to these

greater and lesser lights of our

homage Moral

Hemisphere, which have both of them together poured a flood of radiance over the field of Natural Religion, and so as to have manifested many objects there which would have been but dimly seen by Believing as we do that the the eye of Nature. surest of all philosophy is that which rests on the basis of well-accredited facts, in justice to our
views on
the strict science of the question,

we

THE PRESENT ORDER OF THINGS.

must ment
state the informations
to

187

even of the Old Testa-

be

far

more

satisfying to ourselves than all

the vaunted theorems of academic demonstration. There is a great reigning spirit by which the varied

authorship of this book

is

so

monized

there

is

such

a unity of design
lie

marked and harand

scattered over

contemplation in writings that

the tract of

many centuries

there
first

and consistent march from the

such a stately dawnings of this

is

singular history, towards that great evolution in which the whole prophecy and priesthood of the

is

consecrated land converged and terminated there withal such an air of simple and venerable greatearlier

ness over this

its

record

poetry

such obvious
it

such

loftiness

in

characters of truth and

all
its

sanctity

and moral earnestness throughout

and

compositions, as superadd the strongest weight of

internal testimony to the outw^ard
historical

evidence by which
afterwards be

is

supported.

This

more

distinctly unfolded

^but

may we
sits

cannot even at
all

this stage of

our

incjuiries

withhold

reference to a

Book on whose

aspect there

the expression of most unfeigned honesty, and in whose disclosures we have lessons of the sublimost

Theism.

BOOK

II.

PROOFS FOR THE BEING OF A GOD IN THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

CHAPTER
On
the Distinction between the

I.

Laws of Matter and the

Dispositions of Matter.

We have already adverted to the style of that 1 argumentation which has been employed, for the purpose of demonstrating the creation of matter
.

from the mere existence of it and charged it with the same obscurity and want of obviousness which We do not characterize the a priori reasoning.
;

perceive

how on

the observation of an unshapen

its

mass, there can from

clear

being alone, be drawn any

in

or
;

strong inference

favour
it

of

its
is,

nonthus

eternity

or that simply because

it

now

a time

must have been when

or an original

was

not.

We cannot

read in the entity of matter, a prior non-entity

thing
that

commencement for it; and somemore must be affirmed of matter than barely
ere

it is,

we can

discern that either an artist's

at all

mhid or an
with
2.
it.

artist's

hand has
this.

been concerned

But more than

an organized solid

This matter, whether or a soft and yielding fluid

190

ox THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTEB

congregated apparently at random in the receptacie which holds it, might exhibit a number of properties

be the subject of various that either a creative announcing laws, without power or an intelligent purpose had to do with For of what signincancy is it the formation of it. towards any conclusion of this sort that an isolated

and manifest

itself to

lump
weight

is
;

possessed
or that

of

hardness,
discern in

or
it

solidity,

or

we can

the law of

cohesion, and the law of impulse, and the law of

These laws might all be detected in any one body, or they might be shared in common throughout an aggregate of bodies scattered about in rude disorder yet exhibiting no trace whatever of a first production at the mandate of any living potentate, or any subsequent distribution which
gravitation.

and scheming intellect ^^hich Matter must have had some properties to certify its existence to us, it being by its properties alone and not by any direct view of its naked substratum that we come to recognise it so that, to learn of matter at all, it must have
bespoke a
skilful
it.

presided over

had some properties or other belonging

to

it.

Now these properties might be conceived of variously, and all the actual laws of the material system might be discovered in a confused medley
of things strewn around without any principle of

netic,

arrangement its chemical, and optical, and magand mechanical laws ; and yet from the study of these, no argument might be drawn in favour of a God, who either called the matter into being, or endowed it with the attributes which we find it to
possess.

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

3.

191
faj

The main

evidence, then, for a

God, as

as this can be collected from visible nature, lies not

but This distinction between thQ laws and the dispositions of matter has been overlooked by theists; or at least riot been brought forward with sufficient prominency. Nevertheless
in its dispositions.
it is

in the existence of matter, neither in its laws,

essential, not only for the

its

purpose of exhibit-

ing the argument in

it

strength, but of protecting

from the sophistry of infidels. 4. It may be difficult to discriminate, or at least to characterize by a single word, what that is in matter apart from laws, which we w^ould single out as affording the chief argument for a God. It is not enough to say that, in contradistinction to the
properties of matter',
cation of
its

we would appeal

to the collo-

parts.

No

doubt a very great pro-

portion of the evidence that

we

are

now

seeking to

demonstrate

lies in

the right placing of things, but

not the whole of

it ; and this, therefore, is only d specimen of our meaning, without being the full and general exemplar of it. It is not from some

matter being harder than others that we infer a God but when we behold the harder placed where it is obviously the most effective for a beneficial
;

end,

as in

the

nails,

animals, in this

we

see evidence for a

and claws, and teeth of God. It is

not the law of refraction in optics that manifests to us a designer ; but there is a very striking manifestation of

Him

in the position of the lenses of the

it

eye,

and of the retina behind

being such as

to

make

the rays of light converge into that picture

; ;

192

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

is

which
It is

indispensable for the purposes of vision.

not from the law alone of muscular contrac-

b.ut

we argue for a God from the circumstance, that wherever a collection of fibres having this property is to be found in
tion in animal substances that

the comphcated ff amework of a living creature, the moving force thereby established is always in conjunction with a something that is moveable, and with motions that subserve a useful end insomuch that along with an apparatus of moving forces, we

have a corresponding apparatus of parts to be

moved and
;

furnished too, with the requisite joints

in other words,

or hinges

not the right powers

only, but the right mechanics for giving operation

Now, though these be quoted as adaptations of place, and therefore as instances of wise and beneficial collocation, it is not right placing alone which gives rise to all our beneficial adaptations. Things
and
eifect to

the

powers.

adaptations

may

all

rightly shaped and rightly proportioned and besides, looking to laws and forces alone, one can imagine that were all the other dispositions of our present actual economy to remain as they are, a mere change in the intensity of these forces would be the occasion of many grievous maladjustments as a gravitation of ten times greater force towards the centre of the earth, with only the present powers of locomotion in those who inhabit

must be

the surface of

it;

or

more
;

intense

affinities

of

cohesion in the various material substances within

the use or reach of

man

or an atmosphere
light,

and

ether for

the

propagation of

of different


ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.
elasticity

193

than what

is

now

so exquisitely suited to

our

present susceptibilities of

sound and vision.*

These

instances are enough to prove that the term

collocation does not of itself suffice for expressing different the distinction at w4iich we now aim.

on each planet of our system might have given to each an elongated instead of a nearly cncular orbit, and the benefits of such an orbit cannot therefore be referred to collocation The term collocation, no doubt, might alone. express by a single w^ord that which in this arguBut a better perment is contrasted to " Law."
centrifugal influence
It certainly does not comhaps might be found. wish to include in it as we prehend all which It is not setting up. first its marking design at

the

mere placing

of the parts

of matter which

affords decisive indication of

but of parts shaped and sized in the most beneficial way

this,

beside being

endowed with the very forces or motions that were the most suitable in the given Beside the original placing of circumstances.

Jupiter and his satelhtes,

we must

advert in the

argument for and intensity

in

intelligence to the original direotion

of the motions

which were communi-

cated to them.

Beside the situation of the parts

an anatomical mechanism, reference must be had both to the form and magnitude of the parts. Perhaps then, instead of the collocations, it were better, as more expressive of v/hatever in matter might be comprehended under the head of its
*

Whewell,

in the

second chapter of the Introduction to his

its

truly admirable Bridgewater Treatise, distinguishes both

the force of a law and arbitrary magiaitude.

intensity

or rate, which latter

between is an

VOL.

I.

194

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

arbitrary arrangements, that

positions of matter with
its

we

contrasted the dis-

laws.

5. For the purpose, then, of viewing aright what that is, in which, nakedly and singly, the chief strength of the natural argument for a God we should not only distinguish between the lies existence of matter and its dispositions, but also between the laws of matter and its dispositions.

have already said, that we detach an ingredient of weakness from the cause, when we give up that part of the argument which is founded on the bare existence of matter; and we at least bring out

We

more prominently, because more separately, the main strength of the argument when we discriminate between the evidence for a divine wisdom in the laws of matter, and the evidence for a divine If matter wisdom in the disposition of its parts. have existed from eternity, it must have had properties of some kind and why not, it is asked, as

well the actual properties which characterize

it

as

La any others ? found an atheistical insinuation on the doctrines whioh he professes to demonstrate that every virtue which radiates from a central point diminishes and in intensity with the squares of the distances
Place, indeed, goes so far as to

hence,

if

gravitation be a property at

all,

the actual

law of gravitation is an essential property of matter. Now, it is not sufficiently adverted to, that we can

even afford to give up the evidence as indicated singly by the laws, because of the overpassing
evidence which
matter.
is

indicated

by the
or

collocations of

Laws

of

themselves would announce

the hand

nought whatever of

mind

of

an

ox THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

artificer.

195

The

truth

is,

that with laws

and withstill

out collocations or dispositions,

we

should

have but a heaving, turbid, disorderly chaos whereas it is by the collocations as adapted to the laws that the only decisive indications of counsel
or contrivance are given. We can imagine all the present and existmg laws of matter to be in full operation; and yet, just for the want of a right
local disposition of parts, the universe

might be

that wild undigested medley of things, in which no

one trace or character of a designing architect was Bodies may have gravitated from all eternity through the wide expanse of nature, as they do now. Light may have diffused itself by emanation from various sources with its
at all discernible.

present velocity.

Fluids

may have commixed

have had which they possess at this moment. All the forces whether of mechanics or of chemistry, or even of physiology, might have been inherent in the various substances of nature and yet in the random play of all these physical
'

with solids

and each

class of substances

the very properties

energies, nothing still but a chaos might have emerged, that gave no indication whatever of a presiding Mind, which dhected the principles and

immense universe, to any one end or object that mind can be conceived as set upon. A headlong gravitation might have amalgamated all the matter of the universe into one mass. And what of this matter was in a liquid or aerial form, might have buoyed all the lighter
the processes of this

substances to the exterior of this rude mundane system. And motion might have been excited by

196

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

those inequalities of temperature which the ceaseless operations of chemistry give rise to.

And

this

motion, whether communicated by impulse or withstood by resistance, might have ever and anon been renewed by the partial action of the evolved heat on the susceptible fluids of that turbid and ever heaving mass which constituted the whole Universe and thus a perpetual vortex of movements might have been kept up, all under the guidance of those very laws which it is the object

of our existing Philosophy to ascertain.

There

might have been the rotation of a vast unweildy sphere; and the coherence of its parts by attraction;

and the play of various activities among the particles of the mass ; and even such vegetative or animate
tendencies as, with a right assortment of the substances in which they reside, might have given

two great families of the great Physiological kingdom, but, without such -assortment, ever and anon fell short and were frustrated in the
birth to the

All this is formation of a complete organic being. conceivable with the present laws, just if without
the present collocations.

one law of matter which now

vation of ihquirers that,
if

In truth, there is not falls under the obser-

unaccompanied with

such a collocation as shall suit the parts of matter to each other, might not have had place in the random and undirected turbulence of a chaos. The laws of matter uphold its movements ^but they are its dispositions which guide the moveThey acre the laws which carry forward ments. But the processes or evolutions of a framework.

it

is

collocation

which made the framework.-

In

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

other words design
properties of matter
is

197

-but by a right placing of the

all

not indicated by the mere

parts of matter.

One can imagine

the properties

of matter to have existed before that the Spirit of

God moved on the face of the waters, and summoned the parts of matter into that order and Even harmony which are now before our eyes.
then, in the void

and formless abyss,

it is

conceiv-

able that there might have been a harmoniousness

in

one set of bodies, and transparency in another, and opaque sohdity in a third, and the tendency to crystallize or to run even into organic harmonies and light might have radiated from in a fourth any quarter where it resided, and been reflected and refracted according to the very laws which characterize the optics of our present world; and

world with the reguwhich are exhibited by ours, there might have been nought but a wild and indescribable medley of things, with all the activities which abound in our present system, but without one indication of pui-pose or aim in any of its arrangements. And, confining ourselves to one example, the refraction of light in its passage from a rarer to a denser medium might have obtained in a chaos
yet, altogether instead of a
larities

as well as in a world.

The wisdom

therefore that

appears in the formation of an eye

indicated

is

not properly

by the law but by the adaptation of the parts of this organ to the law not by the law or property of refraction, but by the situation of the refracting fluids, which so bend the rays that emanate from the points which be without, as that they should meet in points which arp. within.

198

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

Neither does the law which connects vision with

the formation of a picture composed of these points,
of
itself,

indicate a purpose

but

this

purpose

is

instantly recognised in the

situation of a retina

light is collected,
it

spread out in the very place where aU this refracted and so furnishing the canvass as

were on which the indispensable picture might The law of varying refraction by be received. which the distance of the picture behind the pupil
varies either with the convexity of the pupil or

with the distance of the objects

which, of
itself indicates

^it

is

not this

the hand of Intelligence.

But

the decisive indication lies in the placing of

is

those various muscles wherewith the organ

curiously set

so

some of which the pupil might be rounded or flattened, and by others of which the retina might be either placed nearer to the front of the eye or drawn back to a greater distance from it. The term convenience is equivalent to utUity, and had its origin doubtless in this that
^by

utility results

And

it

is

just the

from the coming together of parts. coming together of those parts

which compose the mechanism of the eye that gives the impression of a fabricator's hand ^and tells us how the eye was fashioned as it is and

placed where
6.

it

is

for the

purpose which

it

so

distinctly serves.

In every work of

human

fabrication, they

are the dispositions

more

especially the collocations,

and
of
it.

the dispositions alone,

which announce the

design which appears to have been in the making

They form

the sufficient, for they form hi

truth the sole indication, of the artist's

mind that


ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.
devised and the

199

We artist's hand that executed. do not accredit him with the original formation of the materials neither do we accredit him with the

laws and properties of matter.

the properties of matter
parts of matter.

He

did not establish

he only took

advantage
tiie

of these properties by a right disposition of the

He

did not institute

laws

but he turns these laws to his purpose ; and this purpose is indicated not by the laws, but by such
places

a disposition of substantive and tangible things as them in the way of the law's operation. The watch-maker did not give to the main-spring but he coiled it up, and so placed it its elasticity

in the barrel

as to impress a rotatory direction

thereupon.

He

did not give to matter

its

power

of cohesion ; but he availed himself of this power when he connected the barrel by a chain with the fusee, and so communicated a circular moveHe did not give its property ment to the latter.
to the lever

but

there

must have been a maker

who had

this

property in his eye, when by means

of a train of wheel-work, he placed a succession of revolving levers between the movingporce and the

balance-wheel which communicates a certain reguHe did lated pace to the handles of the dial-plate. made he not give to glass its transparency but

use of this its property, when he employed it as a covering, which might protect the dial-plate withThe design is not indicated by out concealing it.

any one of the laws

pieces as

^but

by such a

collocation of

these laws conspire to the accomAH the parts of plishment of some palpable end.

made

this beautiful

machinery,

if

misshapen and disjointed

200

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

from each other, might be huddled together into a and on the examination of each there little chaos might be detected all the principles which give movement and efficacy to the mechanism of the time-piece but the design is gathered purely from It is because the arrangement of the materials. of an elastic spring being there ; and a fusee connected with it by a chain being here ; and because the varying diameters of this cone are so accom-

modated
whole
;

to the variations in the elastic* force of the

spring, as to

make

it

equalize the

movement

of the

and because, placed

in the very order that

favours the operation of so

many

different laws,

there are the wheels with their teeth lapping into

each other, and the regulator, and the vibrating

balance, and the indices on the outer face, and the
gxEss that protects
it is

and yet keeps it visible in a of things being endowed because word, not with given properties, but because of things being
so put together as that these properties are
to

made

be

useful, that

we

infer contrivance in the watch.

all

The
But

properties might

have been detected in

the medley o4[p:s rude and unfashioned materials.

it

is

because of a shape and distribution that

evolved the properties towards some useful accom-

plishment

^it

is

because of

this, that

we

recognise

In a designer's hand in the whole fabrication. short, it is adaptation and that alone which gives
the impression of a designing cause
this

and

to

a complete and warrantable impression,

make we do

not need to conceive of the designer that he either originated a substance or endowed it with properties.
It is

enough that he turned the substance

ON

TPIE DISPOSITIONS

OF MATTER.

201

and its properties to account by collocation. And what is true of a watch is true of a world. We do not need to demonstrate the non-eternity of matter. We do not need to involve ourselves in any question about the essential and the arbitrary properties
of matter.
dispositions.

We make
God

our single appeal to

tbat

its

It is in these

we behold

the

finger of a

and

in these that there is

most

unequivocal impress of the mind which presided

over the formation of
7.
all

things,

In the performances of
for

human

art,

the

argument
useful

design

that

is

grounded on the
stands completely
is

dispositions of matter,

grounded implement or piece of mechanism constructed by the hands of man, it is in the latter apart from the former, that the indications of contrivance wholly and exclusively lie. We do not accredit man with the establishment of any laws for matter yet he leaves enough by which to trace the operations of his intelligence
on the useful laws of matter

disentangled fi'om the argument that

for in every

in the collocations of matter.

He
;

does not give

any of its properties but he arranges it into parts and by such arrangement alone, does he impress upon his workmanship the incontestable marks of design not in that he has communicated any powers to matter, but in that he has intelligently availed himself of these powers, and directed them
to matter

to

an obviously beneficial
its elasticity

result.

The watchmaker
its

did not give

its

to the main-spring, nor

regularity to the bitlance-wheel, nor

transof its

parency to the glass, nor the

2

momentum

varying forces to the levers of his mechanism,

I

^}'et

202
is

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

the whole replete with the marks of intelligence notwithstanding, announcing throughout the hand
of a

maker who had an eye on

all

these properties,

and assigned the right place and adjustment to each of them, in fashioning and bringing together
the parts of an instrument for the measurement Now, the same distincand indication of time.
tion can

be observed in all the specimens of natural It is true that we accredit the author mechanism. of these with the creation and laws of matter, as well as its dispositions but this does not hinder its being in the latter and not in the former, where the manifestations of skill are most apparent, or where
;

The truth the chief argument for a divinity lies. without collocations, would is, that mere laws,
have afforded no security against a turbid and disOne can imagine of all the suborderly chaos. stantive things which enter into the composition of a watch, that they may have been huddled together,
without shape, and without collocation, into a
chaos, or confused medley
;

little

^where, in

full

posses-

sion of all the properties which belong to the

mat-

ter of the instrument, but without its dispositions,

every evidence of
obhterated.

skill
it

would have been wholly

even so with all the substantive things which enter into the composition of Take but their forms and collocations a world.
is

And

away from them, and

this

instantly lapse into a heaving

goodly universe would and disorderly chaos

its

^yet

without stripping matter of any of

or

pro-

perties

operating the laws of impulse, and gravitation, and magnet-

Ther^ might still, though with random and undirected activity, be

powers.

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

ism,

203

and temperature, aud

light,

and the forces of

chemistry, and even those physiological tendencies,

which, however abortive in a state of primitive

rudeness, or before the spirit of

God moved on

the

face of the waters, waited but a right distribution

of the parts of matter, to develope into the full

kingdoms.

and establishment of animal and vegetable The thing wanted for the evolution of this chaos into an orderly and beneficial system is not the endowing of matter with right properties but the forming of it into things of right shape and magnitude, and the marshalling of these into right This last alone would suffice for bringing places.
effect

harmony out
from the

of confusion
or,

and, apart altogether

first,

without involving ourselves in

the metaphysical obscurity of those questions which

relate to the origination of matter

and to the disbetween its arbitrary and essential properties, might we discern, in the mere arrangements of matter, the most obvious and decisive signatures of the artist hand w^hich has been employed on it. 8. It is thus I imagine that we might clear aw^ay the obscurer from the distincter parts of the theargument. Laws without collocations istical would not exempt the universe from the anarchy
tinction

of a chaos.

All the existent law^s of the actual

it

universe would not do

collocations destroyed,

and,

w^ere the present

we

see nothing in the pre-

sent laws which have even so

to restore

much

as a tendency

For example, let the human species be extinguished; and for aught we see, there is no force and no combination of forces in Nature which could replace the organic creature
them.

204

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

is of such curious and maniApart from the estabUshed line of derivation, we do not even see an abortive tendency towards the formation of any such distinct organic bemg whatever, whether animal or vegetable. So that if by any chance our race should be extinguished, then, unless by the fiat of a Creator, the surface of our globe would remain

man, made up as he
fold
collocations.

for ever desolated of all its rational generations.

If

we can

demonstrate, then, whether from Nature

or History, that there was a time

species

when our human

was not

we

should hold this to be a sure

stepping-stone to the demonstration of a God.

evidence for design in a workmanship grounded exclusively on the shapes and collocations of thmgs ; and in no way presupposes either a creation of matter, or an infusion of its properties, on the part of the artificer. And the very same evidence we might have entire, in the workmanship of Nature whatever the obscurities may be which rest on the eternity of matter, or on the essential and inseparable qualities which may be conceived to belong to it. We do not escape from this evidence by ascribing self-existence to body, and asking why its present properties might hot have obtained from everlasting ? There is still enough of evidence for an over-ruling mind, if the present arrangements be not from everlasting. "Wlien these arrangements commenced, there was a turning of the properties of matter by the new adap9.

The
is

of art

tation of its parts

to

the

fulfilment

of certain

ends

and

in this alone

evidence for design, that

we have the same entire we have in the fabrications


ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.
of

205

human intelligence. Grant that there may have been light from all eternity, and that there might also have been fluids which had the power of bending
the direction of
its

rays.

Still if

when man was not

to

we

ever a time was

the fluids

ask,

how came

be so disposed in the pupil of the eye, and the retina to be placed at such a dista^jce behind as

to

make

the pencils

meet on that

visual tablet,

and

there spread out a picture of nature for the infor-

mation of the living occupier within ?

What brought
comit

the manifold muscles around this delicate and

plex organ, and set each in that very position, and

gave to each

tfiat

very limit and path by which

It is

could best add to the perfection of this instrument

for the purposes of sight ?

not enough to

say that the law by which the successions of the

animal kingdom are upholden,

is

that in virtue of
its

which each throughout

shall

parent
all

transmits

own

likeness

generations.
first

We

speak on the

supposition of a

parent, a supposition that

we

endeavour to substantiate afterwards- and, in reference to him we would ask, not who established
life and of nourishment and of sensaand of thouglit which make man what he is but who brought such an innumerable assemblage of circumstances together, and by the adaptation

the laws of
tion

of each to all the rest, upholds the living creature

in the exercise of all his functions

and

all his

faculset

ties?

Who

so curiously organized

himand

him

all

over with so

many

fitnesses

both of one part

to another,

things? breathe in

and of all to the constitution of external gave him the lungs that could no other atmosphere and the eyes that

Who

20G

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

borne into utter bhndness

an intenser day-light than ours might have overand the ears that either

might have been insensible

have
inflicted the

to the actual

sounds of

external nature, or on which these sounds would

intolerable

agony of a loudness that was sensibility of touch that might under a random^conomy have been far too delicate

and the

for the

rude exposures of

this world's elements, or

too obtuse for any intimation even from the rudest

of their collisions ?

And how came

made up

such a comof

plex anatomy into being,

ten thousand parts, the

more than want of any one of which would bring discomfort or utter deduction on the creature who has been provided with it ? The laws
of nature can explain the succession of
its

events

but these laws do not inform us of the way, in which such an arrangement or such a collocation of many
things has been brought about, as to

make

the

working of these laws subserve an accomplishment, which, but for the adaptation of one part to another would have utterly been frustrated. 10. This diff'erence between the Laws of Matter and the Dispositions of Matter, is one of great
importance. In astronomy, for example, when attending to the mechanism of the planetary system, we should instance at most but two laws the law of gravitation ; and perhaps the

argumentative

law of perseverance, on the part of all bodies, whether in a state of rest or of motion, till interrupted by some external cause. But had we to
state the dispositions

of matter in the planetary

system,

we should

instance a greater

number

of

particulars.

We

should describe the an-angeraent

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

of
its

207

various parts, whether in respect to situation,

or magnitude, or figure

as the position of
;

a largo

and luminous mass in the centre and of the vastly smaller hut opaque masses which circulated around
it,

each other

but at such distances as not to interfere with and of the still smaller secondary ;
:

bodies which revolved about the planets

And we
to the

should include
different

in this description the

impulses in

one direction, and nearly

secure the

in

one plane, given

moving bodies; and so regulated, as

to

movement

of each, in an orbit of small

of matter in the

eccentricity.

The

dispositions

planetary system were fixed at the original setting

up

of the machine.

The

laws of matter were

ordained for the w^orking of the machine.

former, that
w^ork, or
is

The

the dispositions,

make up

the frame-

what may be termed the apparatus of the

system.

The

latter, that is the laws,

it.

uphold the

performance of
1 1
.

Now

the tendency of atheistical writers

is

to reason exclusively

on the laws of matter, and to overlook its dispositions. Could all the beauties and benefits of the astronomical system be referred to the single law of gravitation, it would greatly reduce the strength of the argument for a designing
cause.

La

Place, as

if

to fortify

still

more the

atheism of such a speculation, endeavoured to demonstrate of this law that, in respect of its being inversely proportional to the square of the

distance from the centre,

of matter.

it is

an

essential property

that but

La Grange had
for

previously established

such a proportion, or by the devia-

tion of a thousandth part

from

it,

the planetary

208

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

system would go into derangement

words, that the law, such as
the stability of the present
it is,

or, in

other

was

essential to

mundane

constitution.

Place would have accredited the law, the unconscious and unintelligent law, that thing according to
this

La

him

of blind necessity, with the whole of

overlooking what elements demonstration of certain dispoalong with the law such as the movement
noble and beautiful result

La Grange

held to be indispensable as concurring

it

in his

sitions

of all the planets, first in one direction, second nearly

in

We

one plane, and then in nearly circular orbits. are aware, that according to the discoveries,

or rather perhaps to the guesses of

analysts,

some

later

the three last circumstances might be

dispensed
odical,

with;

and
its

yet
errors

notwithstanding,
still

the

planetary system,

remaining peri-

would in virtue of the single law oscillate around a mean estate that should be indestructible and everlasting. Should this come to be a conclusively settled

doctrine in the

science,

it

will

extenuate,

we

admit, the argument for a designing

cause in the formation of a planetarium.

not annihilate that argument

But

it

will

^for

there do remain

certain palpable utilities in the dispositions as well

as laws of the planetary system,

acknowledged by aU

the astronomers ; such as the vastly superior weight

and quantity of matter accumulated in its centre, and the local establishment there of that great fountain of light and heat from which the surrounding worlds receive throughout the whole of their

course

adjustment would

an equable dispensation. What a malit have been, had the luminous

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

209

and the opaque matter changed places in the firmament or the planets, by the eccentricity of their
;

orbits,

been subject

to

such vicissitudes of tempera-

ture as would certainly, in our

own

at least,

entailed destruction both on the animal

table kingdoms.
12.

have and vege-

We

hold that there

is

strong evidence for

commencement of our planetary system though we shall not attempt to expound it at

the

present

and the more,

as there

is

a greatly overof

passing evidence for the

commencement

the

organic systems in our animal and vegetable king-

doms, which are far more replete with the indicais the mechanism of the heavens, Let us therefore by astronomy. meanwhile assume a beginning for our solar system and then, though we should not be able to disprove the eternity of matter, or that it had all the laws and properties which we now observe from still these laws and properties though everlasting perfectly sufficient to account for the working of the planetary mechanism, are not sufficient to

tions of design than

as unfolded to us

account for the original collocation of

its

parts.

They may account for

the operation of the machine,

If we have evibut not for the fabrication of it. dence for its being at one time set up, we are in the profoundest ignorance of any law by which it

behoved

to

be set up according to

its

present

arrangement.

Why,

for example, should all the

luminous matter have been accumulated in the \Vliy should the fountain-head of light centre ?
place,

and of heat have been throned, as it were, in that whence it could emanate its gracious influ-

210

ON

'lllE

DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

ences with best advantage on those worlds, which by the weight of its superior attraction it could

compel

to

a close attendance upon itself?

fire

Why,

around which the planets move, and whence they receive through every part of their course an almost equable dispensation might there not have been an opaque mass in the midst of that planetarium which now and wandering suns is lighted up so gorgeously that, moving as comets do, might have scorched and left to freeze alternately the fixed and immoveable opaque in the midst of the firmament ? And there are other adaptations a rotation around every axis that affords a grateful succession of day and night a progressive movement in space which
instead of this great central

along with the inclination of the axis to the plane

of revolution leads

on the seasons through the

round of
their pale

their beneficent journey

the

satellites

that reflect though they do not radiate, and cast

but useful lustre over the wintry and

benighted regions of the worlds which they encompass the distance at which the planets are kept from each other, and the free uncumbered amplitude which is thus left for moving without interruption, and without even any hurtful disturbance from their mutual gravitations. These are the few but still the contingent simplicities which might or might not have taken place and on the actual

concurrence of which, those worlds resemble our

own

in certain great characteristics,

which we know

are indispensable to the sustenance and the being

We are aw^are of its animated generations. no force now in operation that could have carried
of all

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

211

the sun

out these planets to their respective distances from that could then, instead of simply leaving

back into the mass of that great have projected them at about right angles to the line which lay between them that could have directed the impulses so, as that in most instances, there should have been an axis

them

to

fall

luminary,

with an angle of inclination to the plane of the

orbit

that

should

have^o tempered

the velocity

of the centrifugal motion as to have given to each

a nearly circular path

that, in like

manner, should
their primaries,

have launched the

satellites

around

and thus have given rise to that beauteous and beneficent mechanism which the laws of nature might keep in action, but which no laws of nature that we have any access to could have framed or put to together. To constitute a machine is one thing continue it in operation is another. The latter might be done in virtue of the properties of matter, and the former not be referrible to any one material agent within the compass of our knowledge. Although we should concede to Atheists, that the laws of matter had been long antecedent to the formation of the planetary system yet formed as the system may have been in accommodation to these laws, there might, by the mere adjustment of its parts, (and an adjustment whfch no blind and

unconscious forces that we at least know of could have given rise to,) to subserve some striking and palpable ends there might be evidence in this goodly fabrication, of a purpose by an Artist's mind, and of an Artist's hand put forth on the

execution of

it.

212
13.

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

But whatever
defect

or

doubtfulness

of

mechanism of the heavens this is amply made up for in a more If either the accessible mechanism near at hand. dispositions of matter in the former mechanism be
evidence there

may be

the

so few, or the demonstrable results of its single law be so independent of them, that the agency of design rather than of necessity or chance be less manifest than it otherwis#v,'ould be in the astronomical system; nothing on the other hand can

exceed the force and concentration of that proof, which is crowded to so marvellous a degree of enhancement within the limits of the anatomical
system.
It is this

which enables us

to

draw

so

much

weightier an argument for a God, from the construction of an eye than from the construction
of a planetarium.
that
it is

And

here

it is

quite palpable,

in the dispositions of

matter more than in

the laws of matter, where the main strength of the argument lies, though we hear much more of the

wisdom

of Nature's laws than of the

wisdom

of

refraction

Now it is her collocations.* is indispensable to the faculty of vision

true that the law of

* This distinction between tlie laws and the collocations of matter is overlooked bv atheistical writers, as 'in the following specimen from the "'Systeme de la Nature" of Mirabaiul. "These prejudiced drctiniers," speaking of believers in a God, *' are in an ecstasy at the sight of the periodical motion of the

planets

at the various productions at the order of the" stars at the astonishing harmony in the component of the earth In that moment, however, they forget the laws parts of animals. of motion; the power of gravitation; the forces of attraction they assign all these striking phenomena to and repulsion unknown causes, of which they have no one substantive idea." When Professor Robison felt alarmed by the attempted demonstration of La Place, that the law of gravitation was an essential
; ;

ON THE DISPOSITIONS F MATTER.

but the laws indispensable to

213

this result are greatly

outnumbered by the

pensable to it such as the rightly sized and shaped lenses of the eye and the rightly placed retina spread out behind them, and at the precise distance where the indispensable picture of external nature might be formed, and presented as it w^ere
;

dispositions which are indis-

for the information of

the occupier within;

situation

and
the

then,

the

variety

and proper

of

numerous muscles, each entrusted with an important function, and all of them contributing to the power and perfection of this curious and manifoldly
complicated organ.
It is not so

much

the

endowas the

ment of matter with

arrangement of
it

certain properties,

into Certain parts, that

;

bespeaks
be found

here the hand of an artist

and

this will

true of the anatomical structure in

ments.

It is

departnot the mere chemical property of

all its

the gastric juice that impresses the belief of contrivance ; but the presence of the gastric juice, in
the very situation

whence

it

comes forth

to act

the stomach, and there submitted to a digestive process for the nourishment of the animal economy. It is
well to distinguish these two things.
If

w4th advantage on the food,

when received mto

we but we

say of matter that

as

it is

furnished w4th such powers

make

it

subservient to

many

useful results,

property of matter, lest tlie cause of natural theology should be endangered by it he might have recollected that the main evidence for a Divinity lies not in the laws of matter, but in their collocations because of the utter inadequacy in the existing laws to have originated the existing collocations of the material world. So that if ever a time was, when these collocations were not there is no virtue in the laws that can account for their commencement, or that supersedes the fiat of a God.

214

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

keep back the strongest and most unassailable It is greatly part of the argument for a God. more pertinent and convincing to say of matter,
that
it is

distributed into such parts as to ensure a

right direction

and a
not so

beneficial application for its

powers.

It

is

much

in the establishment

we can discern the aims or the purposes of intelligence, as in certain dispositions of matter, that put it in the way of
of certain laws of matter that

Insobeing usefully operated upon by the laws. much, that though we conceded to the atheist the eternity of matter, and the essentially inherent

character of

all its

laws

we could
.figure,

still

point out

to him, in the manifold adjustments of matter, its

adjustments of place, and

the most
variety

and magnitude,

impressive signatures of a Deity.

of

And

what a countless within the compass of an animal, or even a vegeIn particular, v/hat an amount table framework and condensation of evidence for a God in the What bright workmanship of the human body and convincing lessons of theology might man (would he but open his eyes) read on his own person that microcosm of divine art, where as in
!

such

adjustments

the sentences of a perfect epitome, he might trace

in

every hneament or
14.

authorship of the

member Godhead

the

finger

and

It is thus that the evidence yielded

by one

department of nature for a God, diiFers so much It in strength from that yielded by another. varies with the number of independent circumstances which must meet together for the production of

some given end.

Shoidd

it

require, for

OS THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

215

example, the concurrence of ten such ciiSimstances

to

brmg about a

useful result, the

argument

for

design founded on this concurrence has inconceivably greater force than

or four.

when

it

requires only three

According

to the doctrine of chances, the

evidence should grow in a rapid multiple ratio

with the increase in the number of those contin-

gent things which enter into an arrangement, and

are indispensable to the effect of
for this reason
prolific
it.

It is precisely

that

anatomy
for a

is

so

much more

of
is

argument

God

than astronomy.

There

a vastly greater number of independent

largely

parts and relations in the anatomical system, than

when viewed
which
it

and generally, the only way

in

can be viewed by us, there is in the system of the heavens. There is a prodigiously more concentrated proof of contrivance within the little

compass of an eye, than jn the wide survey of an astronomer there is within the compass of the
planetarium.
for a

Hence

the

God

in the great

more slender evidence movements of astronomy.

this

The number
science
is

of independent circumstances which

meet together upon the arena of

comparatively small

wondrous

great body in

the centre kept there by the one law of gravitation,

which binds upon

it

the attendance of

its

revolving worlds
these worlds
projectile

single impulse

to

impress upon

upon each of them both the

and the rotatory movements, though so regulated we admit as to secure a nearly circular orbit to them all the inclination of the axis in most of them to the orbit of revolution, which could still have been impressed in dependence on the

216

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

first

random ^ot where the

impulse was given

similar treatment for each of the satellites, with this peculiarity in the comets, their being struck
either with

more unequal
the radius

force in proportion to

their distance

from the sun, or in a more acute

vector
of
their
'

direction

to

orbits.

These make up as it were the few simple contingencies on the union of which the mechanism of our celestial economy was framed at the first, and
is

upholden afterwards.
is

It is

because so few, that

there

more room

for the supposition that their

combination might have been fortuitous and hence astronomy is not the best medium through which to prove the agency of an intelligent Creator although in the language of Dr. Paley if this can

be proved by other means,

it

shows beyond

all

other sciences the magnificence of His operations. 15. In the proportion* that w^e lessen the number
of contingent things

combination we having originated in design, or in a designing Had both the rotatory and the projectile cause. motions of a planet required three impulses that

which enter into any useful weaken the argument for its

is,

its

two equal and opposite forces to spin it round axis, and then a progressive force to set it
all

forwardthis would have afforded evidence for the hand of a God.

the stronger these two

But

motions, as well as the incUnation of the axis to

the plane of the orbit, can aU be ensured by one impulse in a direction obhque to the planet's surface. This in so far attenuates the argument for a
divine agency having

been concerned

in the put-

ting together of this marvellous framework.

But

OlM

THE DISPOSITIONS OF JMATTER

217

it is worthy of remark that this same consideration which tends to reduce the strength of the evidence for a God, tends also to the demonstration of His greatness on the supposition of His existence being estabUshed on other grounds. This reduction of

the progressive and rotatory movements to one impulse ushers the mind of the inquirer into larger views of the constitution of our universe. The

sun
axis

is

and

known

to

have a revolution round

its

own

this, if

not communicated by two equal

and opposing forces that leave it stationary in would bespeak the application only of one force which must give it a progressive motion also. If, then, he be moving forward through immensity, he must carry the whole planetary system along
space,

with him, even as Jupiter does his secondary sys-

tem
the

of sateUites around the sun.

common

This points to centre of a higher system than ours,

their

around which suns with

are revolving.

attendant planets

in the habit of looking to the revolution of our Georgium Sidus as the most magnificent sweep of which we

And

whereas,

we have been

had

direct observation

this

may be but
all

a humble

the suns of our universe with their attendant systems, are so many fellow-travellers on the scale of a highei

epicycle to that great circuit, in which

astronomy.
16.

The

chief then, or at least the usual subject-

matter of the argument, is the obvious adaptation wherewith creation teems, throughout all its borders, of means to a beneficial end. And it is
manifest that the argument grows in strength with
the

number and complexity

I.

of these

means.

The

VOL.

K*

218

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

greater the

number of independent circumstances which must meet together for the production of
a Tiseful result
concurrence,

then,

in the actual fact of their

its

is

there less of probability for

being the effect of chance, and more of evidence

for its being the effect of design,

beneficent

combination of three independent elements is not so impressive or so strong an argument for a

divuiity,

as a similar combination of

six or

ten

such elements.

And

every mathematician, con-

versant in the doctrine of probabilities, knows

how

with everv addition to the number of these elements,

tHe argument grows in force and intensity, with

in

a rapid and multiple augmentation till at length, some of the more intricate and manifold conjunctions, those more particularly having an organic character and structure, could we but trace them to an historical commencement, we should find, on the principles of computation alone, that the argument against their being fortuitous products, and for their being the products of a scheming and skilful artificer, was altogether overpowering.
17.

We might apply this consideration to various

In astronomy, the inde-

departments in nature.

pendent elements seem but few arid simple, which must meet together for the composition of a
planetarium.

One uniform law of gravitation, with a force of projection impressed by one impulse on each of the bodies, could suffice to account for
the revolutions of the planets round the sun, and
of the satellites around their primaries, along with the diurnal revolution of each,

and the varying

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER

inclinations

219

of the

axes

to

the planes of their

respective orbits.

Out

of such few contingencies,

the actual orrery of the heavens has been framed.

But in anatomy, to fetch the opposite illustration from another science, what a complex and crowded
combination of individual elements must
eifected, ere
first

be

we

obtain the composition of an eye,

for the completion of which mechanism, there must not only be a greater number of separate laws, as of refraction and muscular action and

secretion

but a vastly greater number of separate

and distinct parts, as the lenses, and ttie retina, and the optic nerve, and the eyelid and eyelashes, and the various muscles wherewith this dehcate organ is so curiously beset, and each of which is
indispensable
to
its

perfection,

or to

the

right

performance of
vellous that
for

its

functions.

It is passing

mar-

we should have more

intense evidence

God

in the construction of

an eye, than in
planetarium

the construction of the mighty

that, within less

or

than the compass of a handbreadth,

we

should find in this lower world a more pregnant and legible inscription of the Divinity, than can be gathered from a broad and magnificent survey of
the skies, lighted up though they be, with the

and the wonders of astronomy. But while nothing- can be more obvious than that the proof for design in any of the natural
glories
18.

formations,

is

the stronger, in proportion to the

number

and independent elements which have been brought together, and each of which contributes essentially to its usefulness
of

separate

we have

long held

it

of prime importance to the

220

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER*

argument, that clear exhibition should be

theistical

made

of the distinction not generally adverted to,

and which we have now attempted to expound, between Dispositions and Laws in the material
world.
19. Our argument hitherto has been, that even though matter with all its properties had existed from eternity, there might still be room for the indication of a great master spirit being concerned in those existing arrangements of matter, by which
its

properties have

been

made

subservient

to

certain ends which were desirable.

We

have no

doubt that

this overruling spirit

hath both created

the matter and established the properties

although

the cause of theism can afford to give this up, and

the order and adaptation of can find enough things to prove that the hand of a Divinity has

There is less, we admit, of this evibeen there. dence in the movements of astronomy because of the very few distinct and independent elements which

are concerned in them.

Yet we cannot,

in spite

of the atheistical evasion which has been

made
law

from

it,

refrain

from adverting

to the actual

of gravitation as being inversely proportional to

Laplace and others be an essential property of matter, that every virtue which is propagated from a centre should diminish in intensity in this very proportion and so would rob us of the argument for a God that may be' founded on the contingency of this law. Nevertheless, seeing that we have such abundant evidence for a Divinity from other
the squares of the distances.
affirm
it

to

quarters,

we

will appropriate

the honours of this

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

221
it.

law to the presiding intelligence who ordained

It is the beautiful this is the only

discovery of
is

La Grange

that

law which

consistent with the

permanency of the planetary system that if the law of mutual attraction between its bodies had deviated by a thousandth part from that which actually obtains, the mutual disturbances which take place among the planets themselves would at length have deranged the whole economy of their movements that the errors would have accumu-

lated in one direction so as at length either to have

brought the planets to the sun, or sent them to irreclaimable distances away from it but that now

the errors

another ^reaching to a maximum upon one side, which it never can exceed, and then oscillating back again so as to keep a httle way to the right or the left of a certain mean state, which forms the invariable and indestructible average of a system that, under other laws of gravitation, would have contained within itself the principles of its

alternate

between one direction and

own

dissolution.

20. In virtue of the distinction

between the laws

of matter and

its

dispositions,

we might perhaps

release ourselves from a certain atheistical imagi-

nation which, without assuming the shape of a

distinct principle, or

coming forth

in

aught
its

like

formal avowal,
the
spirits

is

apt to maintain

hold over

inquirers.

and conceptions chiefly of physical There is a mystery inscrutable in the

creation of matter out of nothing

and,

on the

other hand,

may

it

have existed from not, unchangeable in character as

if it

everlasting,

why

in being,

222

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

have had the very properties from everlasting And which are now exhibited before our eyes ?
all

the phenomena of this our material universe are held to be the evolution of these properties. Now, the distinction is here overlooked between the
of contemporaneous nature, on which distinction

phenomena of successive nature, and the phenomena

Professor
definitions
.

Edinburgh founded his of natural philosophy and natural history

Robison
of
it

the office of the one to classify the resemblances which take place among the events

making

of the material

Universe; and of the other to

classify the resemblances which take place

among

the objects of the material Universe.

Conceive

the eye to be open for an indivisible moment of time, and that at that moment all the senses of a
living

and perfectly

intelligent observer

were

alive,

to all the properties of all the things in external

nature which were

fitted to

impress them

then

the registration and orderly arrangement of all the properties, thus taken cognizance of on the instant

form the business of the one science which therefore, if completed, would make known to us the colour and the form, and the weight and the taste, and the sonorous and tangible qualities, and lastly,
the structure
or collocation

among

the parts of

But if, instead of one every thing that exists. moment, we introduce the element of time into our observations of Nature, then we shall not fail
to perceive incessant changes going
is

on

in all that

around us

and

it is

the business of these other

that the powers of our

sciences to record and to classify these changes.

Now

what we

affirm

is,

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OP MATTEi

223^

existing natural philosophy have not given rise to the arrangements of our existing natural history

and
may

that if these arrangements were destroyed, these powers are not able to replace them. They

account for the evolution of things or substances collocated in a certain way; but they did not originate the collocations and if it can be

demonstrated that ever a time was v.hen certain mechanisms were not, that are novv in full operation,
or certain organic forces and combinations that now sustain the life and enjoyment of millions

then
living

it

require the

commencement of these that we God; the interposition of a and purposing agent who moulded the forms,
is

at the
fiat

of a

and brought together the parts of the various goodly constructions which are now before our eyes. 21. This fine generalization o^Robison, ranges
all philosophy into two sciences one the science of contemporaneous nature; the other, the science of successive nature. When the material world
is

science of

to this distinction, the whole contemporaneous phenomena is com^ prehended by him under the general name of Natural History, v-hich takes cognizance of all
its

viewed according

those characters in external nature that exist together at the instant, and which may be described without reference to time as smell, and colour,

and

size,

and weight, and form, and

relation of

parts, w^hether of the

simple inorganic or more

complex organic structures. It is when the elements of time and motion are introduced, that we are
presented with the phenomena of successive nature

and the science that embraces these

is,

in contradis-

24

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATl'ER.

termed Natural Philosophy,
separated or subdivided
to investi-

tinction to the former,

This

latter science

may he

further into natural philosophy, strictly and indeed

usually so called, whose province

it

is

gate those changes which take effect in bodies by

motions that are sensible and measurable; and chemistry, or the science of those changes which
take effect in bodies by motions whicli are not
sensible or, at least, not measurable,

and which

cannot therefore be made the subjects of matheThis last, matical computation or reasoning.
again,
is

capable of being

still

further partitioned

into the science

which investigates the changes effected by means of insensible motion in all inorganic matter, or chemistry strictly and usually so called; and the science of physiology, whose province it is to investigate the like changes that take place in organic bodies, whether of the animal or vegetable kingdoms. 22. Or, the distinction between these two sciences of contemporaneous and successive nature

may

otherwise be stated thus.

The
most

one, or natural
other, or

history, is conversant with objects

the

natural

philosophy in
is

its

comprehensive
It is

meaning,

conversant with events.

obvious

that the dispositions of matter

province of the former science

actuated,

come within the

the laws of
it is

^^vhile

matter, or the various moving forces by which

fall

more

properly under the inquiries of

the latter science.

clature,

Now, adopting
it

we

repeat

as a

this nomenmost important assertion

for the cause of natural theology, that should all

the present arrangements of our existing natural

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

history be destroyed, there
is

225
laws
the

no "power

in the

of our existing natural philosophy to replace them.

Or, in other words,

structure and

if

ever a time was,

when

under the pi-esent economy of things were -not there is no force known in nature, and no combination of forces that can account for their commencement. The laws of nature may keep up the working of themachinery ^but they did not and could not set up the machine. The human species, for example,
dispositions of matter,

upholden, through an indefinite series of by the established law of transmission but were the species destroyed, there are no observed powers of nature by which it could again be originated. For the continuance of the system and of all its operations, we might imagine a sufficiency in the laws ^f nature ; but it is the first construction of the system which so palpably calls for the intervention of an artificer, or demonstrates so powerfully the fiat and finger of a God. 23. This distinction between nature's laws and
ages,

may be

nature's collocations

is

mainly lost sight of in those

is

speculations of geology, the object of which

to

explain the formation of

from the wreck of old

new systems emerging They proceed on ones.

up the

the sufficiency of nature's laws for building

present economy of things out of the ruins of a

former economy, which the

thrown.
reside

last

great physical

catastrophe on the face of our earth had over-

NoM^, in these ruins, viewed as materials

for the architecture of

all

a renovated w^orld, there did

those forces, by which the processes of

;

the existing economy are upholden

but the geolo-

226

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

them a function wholly
to distinct

gists assign to
this,

from

when they labour

demonstrate that by laws,

and laws alone, the framework of our existing economy was put together. -It is thus that they would exclude the agency of a God from the transition between one system, or one formation, and
another; although

when

this

be precisely at such transition agency seems most palpably and pecuit

liarly called for.

We

feel

assured that the neces-

sity for a divine intervention, and, of course, the evidence of it would have been more manifest, had

the distinction between the laws of matter and its collocations been more formally announced, or

more

theism.

proceeded on by the writers on natural yet it is a distinction that must have been present to the mind of our great Newton, who expressly affirms that a mechanism of wonderful
fully

And

structure could not arise

by the mere laws

of

In his third printed letter to Bentley, he says, that "the growth of new systems out oi old ones, without the mediation of a divine power, the seems to me apparently absurd ;" and that
nature.
*'

system of nature was

with
respect
to

set in order in the beginning,

size,

figure,

proportions,

and

properties,

by the counsels

of

God's own

intelli-

* Towards the end of the third book of Newton's Optics, we have the following very distinct testimony upon this subject: * For it became Him who created them to set them in order. And if he did so, it is unphilosophical to seek for any other or to pretend that it might arise out of a orio-in of the world though being once formed, it chaos by the mere laws of nature may continue by those laws for many ages." This disposition to resolve the collocations into the laws of nature proves, in the expressive language of Granville Pena,
;
;

ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.

24.

227

One

precious fruit of the recent geological

discoveries

may be gathered from

the testimony

which they afford to the destruction of so many terrestrial economies now gone by, and the substitution of the existing 6ne in their place. If there be truth at all in the speculations of this science, there is nothing which appears to have "been more
conclusively established by them, than a definite
origin or

commencement

for

the present animal

and vegetable races. Now we know what it is which upholds the whole of the physiological
system that
is

now
its

before our eyes,

even

the

successive derivation of each individual

from a parent of
force in nature,

own

likeness

member but we see no

which can
system.
the

tell

and no complication of forces us what it was that originated the

this

It is at

passage in the history of

nature, where
for

we meet with such pregnant evidence

of a designing cause, an be seen, of prodigious density and force, when we compute the immense number and variety of those aptitudes, whether of form or magnitude or relative position, which enter into the completion of an organic structure. It is in
interposition
it will

evidence,

the numerical superiority of the distinct collocations to the distinct laws of

evidence of the former

there
is

lies.

mat ter, that the superior We do not deny that

beneficial,

argument for a God in the number of whUe, at the same time, distinct and independent lav,s wherewith matter is endowed.
how
of his
strenuously, not
'

physical science," but only

some of

its

disciples

have " laboured to exclude the Criator from the

creation
;

details

own

straining everv nerve of ingenuity to ascribe

them

all to seco?idanf cMirs."

228 ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

We
in

only affirm a million-fold intensity of argument

the indefinitely greater

at the

number

of beneficial,

and independent number of collocations whereinto matter has been arranged. In this respect 'the human body may be said to present a more close and crowded and multifarious inscription of the divinity, than any single object within the compass of visible nature.
distinct

and

same time

It

is

instinct

throughout with the evidence of a

hand ; and thus the appropriate men of science who can expound those dispositions of matter which constitute the anatomy of its framework, and which embrace the physiology of its various processes, are on secure and firm vantageground for an impressive demonstration. This we shall attempt to show more fully in our next chapter.
builder's

CHAPTER

II.

Natural and Geological Proofs for a Commencement of our present Terrestrial Economy.
1 The historical argument which we have already attempted to unfold for the non-eternity of our present world, has been exposed to a certain
.

collision

with the speculations of those naturalists,

their theories

who have founded

on the vestiges of
taken place
advert

certain revolutions which

in the state of our globe.

may have

It is not for the vindi-

cation of the Mosaic account that

to this,

we now

but

for the exposition of

what we should

ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

229

term the Geological argument in behalf of a Deity. On this subject there are many, and these perhaps an increasing number, who think that there might be conceded to the geologists an indefinite antiquity for the matter of our globe
of Genesis

-and that, without

violation even to the strict literalities of the

ance

is

one of which, save when allowevidently to be made for the use of popular
^not

book

language, they would

*feel

disposed to give up for

any imaginations or reasonings which philosophy

has yet set forth upon the subject.
to them,
All,

according

which can positively be gathered from the first chapter of that book is a great primary act of creation, at how remote a period is uncertain after which our world may have been the theatre

of

many changes and

successive

economies, the

traces or memorials of which might be observable

at the present day.
It leaves

on the one hand

abundant scope
that the

to those

who

are employed in the

if it be granted Mosaic narrative fixes, only the antiquity of our present races, and not the antiquity of the earth that is peopled by them. But on the other hand we should not tamper with the record by We allegorizing any of its passages or phrases. should not for example protract the six days into so many geological periods as if by means of a

investigation of these memorials,

lengthened natural process to

veil

over the

fiat

of a

God, that phenomenon, if we may so term it, which of all others seems the most offensive to the taste of some philosophers, and which they are most anxious to get rid of. We hold the week of
the
first

chapter of Genesis to have been

literally


230

ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

a week of miracles

the

interposition, during

period of a grfeat creative which by so many successive

evohitions, the present

economy was raised out of

the wreck and materials of the one which had gone

But on this we need not speak decisively whatever way the controversy is adjusted, there remains argument for a God. Should, in
before
^for
it.

in

the

first
,

place,
all

the

Mosaic account be held

to

supersede

those speculations in Geology which

would stretch the antiquity even of our earth beyond the period at which man was created this were deferring to the historical evidence of the Old Testament that book which of all others speaks most directly for a God, and which in fact may be regarded as the formal and express document in which the authoritative register of Creation

is

found.

Or should

it

be allowed, in the second

place, that the sacred

penman does

not

fix

the
this

antiquity of our globe but only of our species

leaves the historical argument entu'e, and enables

us to superadd any geological argument which may be founded on certain characters of vicissitude in
the history of our globe, that are alike recognised

by

all

the systems of geology.

of

Or, thirdly, should,

instead

scripture

superseding or

harmoniz-

ing with geology, geology be held as superseding

scripture,

own

an imagination which of course we disthe argument for a creative interposition would not in consequence be banished from our

still

w orld.
to

It is the establishment of this last position

There which at present we address ourselves. are certain alleged processes in geology which if
true

show unequivocally, we have long thought, the

ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

231

There are marks and footsteps of a Divinity. some we are aware who have founded thereupon a melancholy Deism our business now is to demonstrate, that even in this walk of inquiry, abused as it

has been thus far to the purposes of licentious

speculation,

there

are to be

met the strongest

still

of Nature's evidences against the system of a

dismal and wretched Atheism.

But let us here premise that our argument not rest on the truth of any one of the geolodoes It is enough, if causes of decay gical theories.
2.
.

and destruction are at work which are now undermining the present harmony of things and which must therefore have brought to an end any economy All those who that may have gone before it. conceive of our globe that it liad an existence, and was the theatre of physical changes anterior to the
;

commencement

of the script aral era, agree in this.

We

are not called

upon

t-j

intermeddle w^ith the

controversies of geological science,

when

it is

by

means of a

universal

artcle

of belief that

we

attempt to establish the necessity of a Creative We do not make ourselves responInterposition.

sible for any of the theories, although we select one for the purpose of illustration seeing, in fact, that our argument rests not on the specialty of any of the Ante-Mosaical creeds, but on an

assumption which

is nearly common to them all. For generally speaking they proceed on the rise and disappearance of certain distinct and successive

economies of nature on the face of our globe the decay or destruction of each implying the extinction

232

ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

of at least so

many
its

of the animal
era.
It is

races proper to

on

alone that our argument is based ; need therefore, for the purpose of upholding it, advocate any one geological system in preference
others

and vegetable this and this and we do not

to to

seeing that
Our
is

it

rests,

not on the pecuharities

if

of one creed, but on one article very generally not universally to be found in them.
3.

object in adverting to the speculations of

to

geology

direct the
it

eye

to

a point in the

physical history which

assigns to our globe, when,

on every principle of our commonly received philosophy, there would be required a special interposition on the part of a God. It is to exhibit what we have long regarded as the nearest to a direct and experimental manifestation of a Creative
Process. It is to make demonstration of a time when the goodliest specimens of organization that now abound in our world did not exist and are therefore a consequent, from which we are fully

warranted to reason of the antecedent that went before it. We know not from what quarter to borrow a more effectual weapon, for putting to
flight the atheistical

imagination of the -animaJ and

vegetable kingdoms, being upheld by a chain that is lost in a posterior direction among the obscurities
of the distant future,
tion

among

the
is

still

eternity that

and lost in an anterior direcmore formidable recesses of the past. It is enough, if, amid the
this,

loose and unsettled speculations of geology, they

generally point to
less

that the chain

is

not end-

but has had a

definite

commencement

and that

ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD. 233

therefore our present races were originated in a
different

way

from that in which they are now perpetu-

ated by successive generations.

4.

this

Let us now offer then a short exposition of argument with Cuvier's theory of the earth,

on which, not to ground, but only to illustrate the argument. 5. The water of our present ocean holds certain substances in solution and is thereby adapted to Now it is the. support of certain marine animals. conceivable that the nature of this solution may be

changed, either by coming into contact with new substances and dissolving them, or by a mere

change

in the proportion of its present ingredients.

But it

is

probable, that, after the changes had been

to

a certain degree in the waters of the ocean, the present generation of marine animals Those of them which could not exist in them. on the constitution dependence nice in were formed

accomphshed

of their element,
fice to its

would be the

first to fall

a sacricon-

progressive alterations

then follow
ceivable

and,

the hardier would

it is

after the lapse of ages,

that the change of element might be so

it

great as to bring along v/ith

tion of the existing genera.

the entire destruc-

6. The remains of marine animals must be accumulated every year in the bottom of the ocean. But this is not the only deposition that is going on

an incessant deposition of sediment carried down by innumerable rivers, and obtained from the wearing of those various materials which compose the land. In addition to this, there may be the chemical precipitation of matter in a
there.

There

is

234 ON TJiE commence:vIl:st of the world.

solid

these depositions

form from the water of the ocean itself. All may be spread over the bottom

of the sea in successive layers or strata.

They

may

be hardened by long-continued pressure into

the consistency of stone.

thousands of shells imbedded in them

retained in petrifaction

There may have been and what is

more, the form even of the softer fishes

;

may be
to the

and handed down

observation of very distant ages.

7.

All this

may be

going on in the vast and

inaccessible solitudes of the deep

but how can the

its

vestiges of such a process ever be submitted to

actual observation ?
place.

The ocean may change

There are known causes perfectly comdry land

petent to the production of such an

is

effect. What may be submerged and the deserted bed of the ocean may come to be inhabited by land animals. By an exercise of creative power the sea may be stocked with new generations,

now

to the last changes which its waters have undergone and by another exercise of creative power, the new land which has been formed may If there be a also be peopled with living beings. rational being among the last like man, he might

adapted

observe the traces of that process which took place

hi the last era of the history of the

globe.

He

might learn from the vestiges of marine animals firmly imbedded in the stratified rock, that the ground he is now treading upon was at one time covered with the waters of the sea and by comparing specimens extracted from the fossil

productions around him with the fishes

of

the

present ocean, he might come to the wonderful

ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WOULD. 235

conclusion
that

the

former species

have been
totally-

extinguished, and given place to a

dissimilar generation.
8.

new and

But

this is

not

all.

The various
and
die,

tribes of land

animals

now

rAiltiply

remains in that very,

sediment of rivers
in its progress,
soil
is

and deposit their region which abounds with

the marine productions of a former era.

The

not

all

carried forward im-

mediately to the sea.

A great part of it is arrested

upon

their

and goes either to accumulate a banks, or to form alluvial land at

their

mouths.

The

skeletons of land animals are

mass of mineral substances. The ocean which has changed its place once may do it again. It may make a second irruption upon the land, and sweep away whole genera of living The surface that ls creatures from the globe. left dry may be repeopled by a few out of the many who may have escaped this catastrophe ^or an ever watchful Deity may again interfere and, by another exercise of creative power, may occupy the new formed land by other generations. 9. In this way the remains of land and of sea animals may be assembled together in the same neighbourhood. The successive retreats and irrupenveloped in
this

tions of the

Ocean may produce, not

one, but a

series of alternations.

And

the strata which are

around us, each evincing its own relative antiquity by its position, and exhibiting the remains of its

own

peculiar animals,

may

serve the double pur-

pose of recording the great revolutions which have taken place, both in the animal and vegetable

kingdoms, and upon the surface of our Globe,


236 ON THE COxMxMENCEMENT OF THE WOULD.
And, apart from any violent changes in the it must be obvious that the surface of the Globe is not in a state of permanency. There is a constant wearing of the land. Even its
iO.

place of the Ocean,

hardest materials could not resisfl^for ever the incessant operation of the air and the moisture and
the frost to which they are subjected.

The mighty

continent would at length

wax

old and disappear;

and the world that we now

solitude of waters.
11.

live in

become a howling

To

this

it

appearance must

for a change in change that may happen long before the degradaA slight change tion of the land to its own level.

tends, and thus to all remain through eternity, but the place of the Ocean; and a
it

now

in

the

axis

of

the

Earth would be altogether

It is to the diurnal adequate for such an effect. axis, that we owe round its Earth revolution of the perfect sphere. from figure a of its deviation the

so

The Earth is so much flattened at the poles and much elevated at the equator, that the former
by
so

are nearer to the centre of the Earth than the

latter

many English
if

miles.

What would be

the effect then

the axis of the Earth were sud-

denly shifted ?

were

If the polar and equinoctial regions change places there would be a tendency towards an elevation of these miles in the one region, and as great a depression in the other to

and the more transferable parts of the Earth's surface would be the first to obey this tendency. The Ocean would rush towards the new equator.

The
offer

cohesion of the solid parts, would,

it is

likely,

a feeble resistance, and give way to

this


ON THE COMMENCExMENT OF THE WORLD. 237
mighty conaUis nor would the Earth become quiescent till a new and elevated equator was formed at right angles to the former one, and
passing through the present poles.
12.

But

it is

not necessary to assume so entire

a change in the position of the Earth's axis as to produce so great a difference in any of the existing nor would any single impetus indeed suffice levels

to accomplish such a change.

The

transference

of the poles from their present situatioa

by a few

degrees, would give rise to a revolution sudden

enough and mighty enough for a great physical era in the history of the Globe and a change of

level indeed for a single- quarter of a mile, Avould

overwhelm
majority of
13.

its fairest

regions,

and destroy the vast

from
infidel

its living

animals.

To show
the

that

we

fear nothing

science, let us present the following extract from

votaries,

and most exalted of its book entitled " the System of the World," after having reasoned on the likelihood that in the course of ages a comet might interfere
Place,
ablest

La

who

in his

with our Earth, thus pictures the effects of the collision :- " It is easy to represent the effect of

such a shock upon the Earth the axis and motion of rotation changed the waters abandoning their

ancient position to precipitate themselves towards

the ncAV equator

the

greater part

of

men and

animals drowned

in a universal deluge, or destroyed

globe whole species destroyed of human industry reversed such

by the violence

of the shock given to the terrestrial

all

the

monuments

are the effects

which the shock of a comet w^ould produce."

238 ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

" We see then why the Ocean has abandoned th3 Mghest mountains on which it has left incomestable marks of its former abode. We see why the animals and plants of the south may be transported into the climates of the north, where their rehcs and impressions are still to be found ^lastly, it

explains the short period of the existence of the

moral world

whose

earliest

monuments do not go
thousand years.

a small number of individuals in the most deplorable state, occupied

to

much farther back than The human race reduced

three

only with the immediate care of their subsistence,

must necessarily have sciences and of every

lost the

art

remembrance of all and when the progress

of civilization has again created

new

wants, every

thing v/as to be done again as

placed upon the Earth.

man had been just But whatever may be

if

the cause assigned by philosophers to these pheno-

mena

we

may be

perfectly at ease with respect

to such a catastrophe during the short period of

human
14.

life."

We may now

a formation.

now at muddy depositions which

the rivers
will form,
;

understand what is meant by There is a formation going on just the bottom of our present ocean by those
are brought to

and which,

laid the

it from all one over the other,

it is

supposed, the strata of a

this

new

con-

must be a constant accumulation going on both of shells and skeletons and from the bony parts of the numerous and rapid generations by which the sea is peopled, there must accrue a perpetual addition to the solid materials of that deposit, which, by
tinent.

Mixed up with

there

; ;

ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

the operation of a coming catastrophe,

'239

may be

the

There is at dry land of the next geological era. present both a forming and a hardening process
going forward under the waters of the deep so that, when these waters shall have shifted their
position, there will

emerge a continent of the same

is

firm and concrete texture with that which

inhabited by ourselves

and

now

like

it

too, lifted here

and there

into

Alpine elevations, by the mighty

It is

violence that will then be abroad over the whole

surface of the world.

obvious that this

new

land will have been mainly built up from the waste

and demolition

of the present one

now

it

is

principally

matter swept off

rivers,

insomuch as by the supply of new from the earth by the flow of

fed
into the
cavities

and transported

of the

language our present continent becomes the father of a new one and that itself hath had a father and a grandfather,
deep.
It is thus that in geological

to an ancestry

which venerable personage can further lay claim and thus it is that on the face of our world there are characters by which to trace
;

what may be called the pedigree of successive the most recent of these formations being that which preceded the very last catastrophe and the intervals between the catastrophes marking the distinct eras of a globe, which, for aught we know, might have been the theatre of many
formations

revolutions.
15. Now to come nearer to our argument. Correspondent to the marks by which one set of professional men, even the geologists, have arranged

these

various

formations in

the

order of their

240 ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WOELD.

antiquity

^there is

another set of professional men,

even the anatomists or comparative anatomists, who in the course of their independent researches have by the study of
they think,
fossil

remains ascertained,

many of

the species and genera of Hving

creatures by which the world has been peopled

during the respective eras of

It
is

its

physical history.

certainly conceivable that a few stragglers

and transmitted
it,

may have

survived the operation of one catastrophe

their

own proper genera and

same

species to the era which immediately succeeded

so as to leave a thin sprinkUng of the

remains over the next formation in the series of

the world's changes.

But

it

the observations of Cuvier and others

in this

would appear from that though

way an occasional

species

may have survived

;

one or two of these destructive revolutions

rity of the

yet

that each catastrophe annihilated the great majoexisting genera,

more swept every

trace of

surface of the globe.

and that a very few them away from the In none of the old formations

hath he ascertained the vestige of the human skeleton marking the recent origin of our own species.

It is only in the latest of these formations that

he

discovered traces indeed of any of our existing

genera of animals.

carries his observation

And, in proportion as he upward among the senior

all

formations, does he lose sight of

any of the known

earth
is

living creatures

resemblance to by which our

affirmed,

peopled.
distinct

But
;

there

is still, it is

a most

and various and perfectly ascertained population and these older formations are crowded with the remains of it. But they are

ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD. 241

wholly distinct from the animals of the present Or, in other words, at each new catassystem.
old races must have perished and the world been stocked with new races distinct and diverse from the former ones.

trophe

16. It

is

to this

of the celebrated

M.

pecuhar object that the inquiries Upon Cuvier are directed.

the former conclusions of geologists respecting the

positions of the different strata,
their formation

and the order of

speculations as
in

^he

grafts his

own

to the fossil remains

finds

which exist

them

ajid

he

that in proportion to the antiquity of the

strata, is the dissimilarity of these

remains to the

present genera.

Of

the remains of sea animals,

he says, " that their species and ev^i their genera change with the strata; and altliough the same
species occasionally recurs at small distances,
it is

generally the case that the shells of the ancient

strata

have forms pecuhar to

till

themselves

that

they gradually disappear

they are not to be

seen at

all in

the recent strata

still

less in the

existing seas, in which indeed w^e never discover

their corresponding species, even of their genera are not

to

and where several be found that on

the contrary the shells of the recent strata resemble,

as

it

respects the genera, those which

still

exist in the sea

and

that in the last formed

loosest of these strata, there are

and some species which

the eye of the most expert naturalist cannot distinguish from those which at present inhabit the

ocean."
17.

From
I.

this extract it will

be perceived that

the alleged revolutions are numerous.

From

the

VOL.

242 ON THE COMSJENCEMFjSri C THE WOJILD.

marks
with,

of rapidity
it

and violence which are

to

be mej;

been purpose might be alleged the breaking ^nd overturning of the strata; and the heaps of debris and rounded pebbles which are found among tlie solid strata in various places.
sudden.

would

also appear that they have

To

this

argument to a phenomena, take the two following doctrines which are now held as being among the most firmly established in natural' history. In the first place, were it not for
18.
at length to bring our

And
In

point.

conjunction with these

certain residual

phenomena
of,

v/hich can with

is

diffi-

culty be disposed

there

now about

utterly

exploded the old doctrine of a spontaneous or

equivocal generation.

As

far

as can be traced

with positive certainty by the eye of observation,

not knovrn that either animal or vegetable is brought into existence in any other way than by
it is

transmission from an animal or vegetable of the

same

species.

Many

of those appearances which

v/ere at one time conceived to indicate the contrary

to this, on a more strict and close examination, have been reduced to the ordinary process and the iix)re narrowly that the search is prosecuted, the ntore is the semblance of exception done away insomuch that we might hold it as being neariy

the universal creed of naturalists, that throughout both the animal and tlie vegetable Kingdom, each
individual hath

had a parent of his own likeness. This may at least be afiirmed of all the distinct and definite specimens which compose the great bulk whether of the zoology or botany of our present era so far at least, as that it mip-ht with all sai'ety be


ON THE COMMtNCEAlENT OF THE WOHJ.D. 243
affirmed of all the species which are known to propagate themselves, that there has not yet been discovered the slightest tendency to the formation
of the individuals of these species in any other

way

than by ordinary generation. However indeterminate the questions may yet be which respect certain obscure or animalcular cases, this surely does not affect the generality or invariableness of
the doctrine in regard to all the well-known members whether of the vegetable or animal family
to the palpable trees or plants of the former, to

the palpable quadrupeds or birds of the latter, as exemplified in the lion the horse the dog or the
elephant. Whatever discovery might have yet been made, or whatever lack of discovery might yet remain in the microscopic or otherwise dark and perhaps inaccessible departments of nature
this

does not affect the obvious and unexcepted

it

truth as

relates to the

overwhelming majority of
viz.,

that among all the other complicated processes, whether of fermenta-

our living generations;

and chemical o" in the vast laboratory of nature, there is not one of them which approximates in the least towards the formation of such organic beings each of which in fact is the
tion or of putrefaction or of electric

agency,

which are now

goiiig

link of a chain

composed of

links that are altogether

similar to itself

each

formed, and formed in no

other way, than by a derivative process along the

It will at once be seen therefore how many are those exquisite and complex structures which are formed by the collocation of parts; and such a collocation as a

steps of a successive generation.

244 ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

well

known

physical law doth transmit, but which

no physical law can originate that we are acquainted with insomuch that we perceive not the sUghtest tendency to aught hke the spontaneous formation This holds true of all those individuals of them. in our existing animal and vegetable races that come forth in the estabUshed hne of their transmission, so perfectly organized

^yet

without that

observe even the smallest abortive line The mechaor partial approximation to them. nical and the chemical, however variously they

we never

are blended, never once approach in any of their

results to the physiological, at least in such speci-

mens as these. So that if we can but demonstrate a beginnmg for any such separate and independent races in the physiological kingdom, we shall obtain
in our opinion the nearest possible view that is

anywhere afforded within the limits of our creation of the fiat of a God. 19. The next doctrine which we have now to

make use

of is

no

less

the

universal faith

of

naturahsts than the former.

It is that the species

They are do not run the one into the other. separated ; and that, by barriers which are permaShould there even be a nent and invincible.
minghng
either

of

of transmitting

two contiguous species the power this one anomaly, or of

extending it any further, ceases as in the mule, There is thus an with the immediate offspring.
instantaneous check in the

way

of that transfor-

mation by which the species may have been confounded and merged into one another or at length been metamorphosed into other races which

ON THE COiVIMENCExMENT OF THE WORLD. 245

bore no resemblance whatever to their progenitors. Within the limits of a species there might be
manifold varieties

^but these limits

can never be

transgressed to the formation of another distinct

us

and enduring species in the animal kingdom. combine these two doctrines. There
if

Let
is

in

reference to almost,

not universally, to

all

actual
in the

races no spontaneous generation

therefore

existing generation of each species

we behold

the

present link of a chain,

all

whose preceding

links

have been similar

eyes.

There

is

each other

therefore they present us with so many

to the one that is before our no transition of the species into

separate chains,

separation during the

existence.

and wliich have maintained the whole currency of their

nor

is

They diverge not into other species, one species appended to another. They

have either had distinct origins, or they have been distinct from all eternity. If the latter, it is not
likely that they

would have survived an

indefinite

number

of catastrophes each of which might have

swept off whole genera from the face of our earth, and all of which would (but for new collocations which no observed law can account for) have by
a state of desolation. But it is and decisive than any likeliliood that in the older formations no vestiges of our present genera are to be found and that under our present economy, or even in the more recent formations, there are no vestiges of the older genera. A few
this

time

left it in

more

distinct

of the earlier species, it would appear, may have survived one or two of those dreadful shocks to

which our planet

is

exposed

but

in

the

whole

246 ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

amount,
species,
it

seems palpable, that on the one hand

entire renovation of

there has been an entire destruction of the ancient

and on the other an

species

wholly distinct and dissimilar from the

former.

The

older chains of succession have been

if

suddenly terminated, as
extremities.

broken

off at their

lower

of being to

more recent chains, instead be traced through the midway passage

the

And

of a great geological tempest, for the older formations, those earlier records of

our globe hold out

no indication of them the recent chains have after a catastrophe had their first and definite origin. Now the question is. Who or what is the origiAll the busy processes of nature which nator ? are going on around us, fail towards even so much as the formation of an organic being, endowed
with the faculty
of
self-transmission.

All

the

possible combinations which

human

ingenuity can

devise, are baffled in the enterprise.

by that peculiar
in
all

tie

And, save which connects the one link

is

of this concatenation with the other, there

not
art,

the

known

resources of nature and

links

another method by which such a creature can be

formed.

liow then are the

Is there

first

to

be

accounted for?

aught

in the

rude and

boisterous play of a great physical catastrophe that

can germinate those exquisite structures, which during our yet undisturbed economy have been
transmitted in pacific succession to the

present

day ? What is there in the rush and turbulence and mighty clamour of such great elements of ocean heaved from its old resthig place, and lifting its billows above the Alps and the Andes of a


former continent
into being the

what
to

is

there in this to

charm

embryos

of an infant family where-

with to stock and

repeople a

now

desolated

world ?

We

see in the sv/eeping energy and up-

roar of this elemental war, enough to account for but the disappearance of all the old generations

nothing that might cradle any

existence,

new

generations into

so

as

to

deserted bed the

life

before our eyes.

have effloresced on ocean's and the loveliness which are now At no juncture, we apprehend,
world

in the history of the

is

the interposition of

Deity more manifest than at this nor can we better account for so goodly a creation emerging again into new forms of animation and beauty from

moved on

the wreck of the old one, than that the spirit of God the face of the chaos and that nature,

turned by the last catastrophe into a wilderness, was again repeopled at the utterance of His word. 20. Those rocks which stand forth in the order
of their
their

formation, and are each imprinted with

fossil

own pecuhar

remains, have been termed

the archives of nature where she hath recorded the changes that have taken place in the history of the
globe.
to serve the purpose of which we might read of on scrolls or inscriptions by which the successions and those great steps And state. present its to brought been earth has decitruly but be of nature archives these should phered, we are not afraid of their being openly

They

are

made

It is confronted with the archives of revelation. unmanly to blink the approach of light from M'hat-

ever quarter of observation it may fall upon us and these are not the best friends of Christianity

248

ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

feel either dislike or alarm,

who
For

when the
up

torch oi

sci-ence or the torch of history is held

to the Bihle.

ourselves,

we

are not afraid,

when

the eye of

an intrepid, if it be only of a sound philosophy, We scrutinizes however jealously all its pages. have no dread of any apprehended conflict between the doctrines of scripture and the discoveries of science ^persuaded as we are, that whatever story the geologists of our day shall find to be engraven

on the volume of nature,

accredit that story which

it

will

only the

more

is

graven on the volume

Araters bring forth

of revelation.
21.

"And God

said.

Let the

abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firma-

ment of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the
waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God

was good. And God blessed them, saying. Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth And God said. Let the earth bring forth the day. living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping and thing, and the beast of the earth after his kind
said that
it
:

it

was

so.

And God made

and the

the beast of the earth

after his kind,

cattle after their kind,

and

every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his And God kind ; and God saw that it was good.

Let us make man in our image, after our and let them have dominion over the fish ; of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
said.

likeness

OM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WOULD.

249

the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So
of

God created man in his own image in the image God created He him male and female created
;

He

them."

22.

We have again to repeat that our reasoning is

all
it

applicable not to one only but to

theories.

the Ante- Mosaic

To

have place for

indeed,

we have

only to assume that the world has undergone such revolutions or been the subject of such violent
operations as have been destructive of entire species
that formerly existed
is

upon

its

surface.

Of

this it

admitted bv

all

that there are midoubted vestiges

to believe, that

giving us therefore sound reason

on the supposition of an eternal world, all the species by which it was peoj)led at some highly remote period must, by the continuance and repetition of the causes which destroyed several of them, have at length been Swept away. The question

would thus meet us

from eternity.

whence arose the

species

now

in actual being ? seeing that they

have not subsisted

All nature and experience reclaim

against the spontaneous generation of

them

thus

leaving us no other inference, than that

organic

structures of collocation so manifold and exquisite

could only have sprung from the hands of a designer,

from the
23.

fiat of a God. There are many who, in expounding the science of natural theology, would shrink from all recognition of scripture as if this were a mixing

together of things altogether disparate or incon-

gruous.

There

is

a want,

we

shall not say of

250 ON THE COMMENCFMEXT OF THE WORLD.

good
feeling,

but of good philosophy

evidence for a

in this

unless

we

confine ourselves to the express object, of ascer-

taining how

much of

by the
often

light of nature alone.

God is furnished The strength of the

is

argument, upon the whole, on the side of religion,

weakened by
;

this jealous or studied disunion

of the truth in one department from the truth in

another
conflict,

but believing as we, do

there
is

that, instead of

a corroborative harmony between

advert once more to the Mosaic
;

them

w^e shall

account of the Creation

and,

more

especially as

the reconciliation of this history with the indefinite

antiquity of the globe seems not impossible
;

and

that without the infliction of any violence on any

of the literalities of the record. 24.

The

following are the two

''

first

verses in

the book of Genesis.

In the beginning

God

created the heaven and the earth.

;

And

the earth

was without form, and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Now let it be supposed that the work of the first day in the Mosaic account of the creation, begins with the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters.
:

The

detailed history of creation in the

first

chapter

of Genesis begins at the middle of the second verse

introductory sentence, by which

sitely told
first;

and what precedes might be understood as an we are most appoboth that

God

created

all

things at the

and that afterwards, by what interval of time it is not specified, the earth lapsed into a chaos, from the darkness and disorder of which the present system or economy of things was made

ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

to arise.

21)1

By

this

hypothesis

neither

the

first

verse, nor the first half of the second verse

forms

any part of the narrative of the first day's operathe whole forming a preparatory sentence tions,

disclosing to us the initial act of creation at

some

remote and undefined period; and the chaotic

state of the world, at the

commencement

of those

by which out of rude and undigested materials the present harmony Between the of nature was ushered into being.
successive acts of creative power,
initial

act and the details of Genesis, the world for

aught we know might have been the theatre of many revolutions, the traces of which geology may still investigate, and to which she in fact has
confidently appealed as the vestiges of so

successive continents that have

many now passed away.

a vain

The whole

speculation

has mhiistered

triumph to uifidelity seeing first that the Historical Evidence of Scripture is quite untouched by those pretended discoveries of natural science ; and that,

even should they turn out to be substantial discoveries, they do not come into collision with Should, in particular, the the narrative of Moses. ofi^r be sustained, this now we explanation that

would permit an indefinite scope to the conjectures of geology and without any undue liberty with

the

first

chapter of Genesis.
is

We may

here state

no argument, saving that grounded oa the usages of popular language, which would tempt us to meddle with the literalities of that ancient, lu and as appears to us authoritative record.
that there

main difficulty lies in the work of the fourth day, upon which God is said to have made two greal


252 ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.
lights, the greater to rule

the day and the lesser

stars also.

to rule the night,

and the

Yet even

this could be got over, if we adopt a principle which even Granville Penn has found necessary

for the adjustment of his views

violent
this

though himseK a and we think an unnecessary alarmist upon He supposes the Mosaic descripquestion. but in
its

tion to proceed not in the order of creation actually,

order optically

or

in other words,
first

that the sun and

first

moon were not

made, but
earnestly

made

visible

on the fourth day.

We

recommend, however, the perusal of his mineral and Mosaical geologies-*-not because of our great
confidence in his
skill

or science as a naturalist,

but because of a certain admirable soundness in

many

of those views that are purely theological.

If he have erred in the one science, there is a redeeming force in the worth and stability of certain weighty aphorisms that he has given forth

He does not to the other science. respect enough the indications of nature and experience and certain it is, that these might be so far
in relation

disregarded as to invalidate

some

of our

best

arguments on the side of theism. If, for example, fossil remains are not to be looked upon as the vestiges of hving creatures, it would follow, that

what we have been in the habit of considering as forms of nice and excellent adaptation may have been produced without an object, and so after all We may assume with be perfectly meaningless. never formed by shells were real that safety all
nature without the design of covering an animal and hence, if we ever meet in any situation, how-

ON THE COMxMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD. 253

ever novel or unexpected, with a shell or a tooth, confidently refer to the fish which the

we should

one inclosed, to the jaw-bone in which the other Else we shall give countenance to the atheist's argument, that even animals them-

was inserted.

selves
*

might have been casual productions.*

Bishop Patrick's theory was that of au elemental chaos ; and commentary he argues for such a chaos, between the first production of which and the creation of light he imagines an indefinite period. He then supposes a work of sixat the beginning of his

days,

RosenmuUer again, the German commentator and critic, conceives a previous earth, or a first production and a subsequent
renovation.

The chief difficulty in the way of this supposition is the work " Let of the fourth day, of which by our translation it is said there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night ; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and and let them be for lights in the firmament for days, and years and it was so. And of the'heaven to give light upon the earth God made two great lights the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day, and over the night, and and God saw that it was to divide the light from the darkness And the evening and the morning were the fourth day." good. Even Granville Penn- contributes some help to the solution of tliis difficulty, when he tolls us that the description in the first chapter of Genesis proceeds not in the order of the creation actu-

ally,

but in

Its

order optically.

But the most complete solution of this difficulty of which wo know, has been furnished by RosenmuUer. On the fourth day lie savs, that " if any one who is conversant with the genius of the Hebrew, and free from any previous bias of his judgment, will
read the words of this article in their natural connexion, lie will immediately perceive that they import a direction or determination of the heavenly bodies to certain uses which they were to The words nn?D ^H"* (in the 14th verse) supply to the earth. fiant are not to be separated from the rest, or to be rendered that is let lights be made ;' but luminaria,' let there be lights serve in the expanse of heaven' that is, rather let lights be'
'

'

'

for distinguishing between inserviant in expanso cojlorum' day and night, and let them be or serve for signs and for seasons,
'

and

for

days and years.

For we are

to observe that the verb

H^H

251 ON
25.

'inK

C().M.\it;Nci:.\ii-:NT

or

tiik

\v.)5ii.i>.

We

regret that

Peiiii,

or Gisborne, or any

should have entered upon this controversy v/ithout a sufficient preparation of natural science ; and laid as much
geologists,

other of our

Scriptural

on the argument Vvhich they employed, truth and authority of revelation depended on it. It is thus that the cause of truth
stress too

as

if

the

v/ hole

has often suffered from the misguided zeal of its advocates, anxiously struggling for every one
position about which a question

may have been

raised; and so landing themselves at times in a situation of most humiliating exposure to the

argument or
in be
tx)

ridicule of their adversaries.

They

co!istruction with the prefix S ' for,' is gouin-ally employed express the direction or determination of a thing- to an end, and not the production of the thing for example, Numbers x. 31 Zechariah viii. 19, and in many other places.''

He

further argues

thus "But

the difference between the

sinirular V.^

the 14th verse, demands a corresponding- difference in the interpretation ; and, therefore, if we would make that difference literally apparent we must thus literally interpret Fiat, luminaria in tirmamento coeli ad
in

and the plural

Vm

'

dividendnm inter diem et noctem, ut

et in
dies, et in
is
'

sint, in signa, et

tempora,

That
&c.'

annos, et sint ad illuminandura super terrara,' Fiatut luminaria sint in signa &c. et ad illuminandum
particle
'

The

signifies

'

ut' in three

hundred passages, and

ut sint' in several of them. This interpretation therefore yields this literal sense in our language ' Let it be, that the lights in the firmament of heaven, for dividing between the day and the night, be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.' that is finally .' Let the lights in the firmament of
signifies

Vm

heaven, for dividing between the day and night, be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years and let^ them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth : :' and it was so so that Rosenmuller's induction from the construction of this passage is de determinatione astrorum ad certos quosdam usus orbi terrarum prsestandis, esse sermonem non de productione' or that the narrative in these verses respects the .determination of the heavenly bodies to the performance of some Cf?rtain use; to the earth not to Ihe production of these bodies.*
; '

ON

TIIK

COMMENCEMENT OF
line of

'VUK

WOULD. 255
it.

weaken the

defence

l>y

extending
])y

They

multiply their yuhieral)le points

spreading their

detachments and their outworks over too great a

surface,

when they might have concentrated

their

strength within the limits of an impregnable fortress.

They
by

raise too loud

an outcry of alarm,
insignificant

and

lift

too high a note of preparation, on the

their

assault

enemies of some
all

outpost which might with

to

safety be conceded

them

so that when

it

does come to be occupied

by

assailants, there is just as

tremendous a shout

of victory on the one side, as there w^as of misplaced

dread and violence upon the other.

the citadel abideth in
its

Meanwhile

ancient security, as comin all its essential

manding

in its site

and as strong

battlements as ever
this strength,
its

and,

in the consciousness of

might they who look abroad from

if

turrets, eye with perfect tolerance,

not with

complacency, the petty warfare that is occasionally breaking out at their remoter outskirts. It is
right to be vigilant.

but

it

is

not right to w^aste

the strength or the credit of a good cause

the defence of an untenable position

especially,
It is
if

and

upon more

that position be wholly insignificant.

called intellectual tactics,

of what may be good to keep by the strong points of an argument, and to abstain by all means from laying any more of weight on the minor or collateral reasonings than these reason-

thus that in the

management
it is

ings will bear.

26.

We have long

regarded the contest between

the cause of revelation on the one hand, and the

infidehty of the geological schools

upon the

other,

256 ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

as merely an affair of outposts, which, however
terminating, will leave the main strength of the

Christian argument unimpaired. We have already endeavoured to show, how without any invasion even on the literalities of the Mosaic record, the
indefinite antiquity of the globe

might safely be

given up to naturaUsts, as an arena whether for

their sportive fancies or their interminable gladi-

atorship.

On

this supposition the details of that

operation narrated by Moses, which lasted for six

days on the earth's surface, will be regarded as the steps, by which the present economy of terrestrial
things was raised, about six thousand years ago, on the basis of an earth then without form and void. While, for aught of information we have in the Bible, the earth itself may, before this time, have been the theatre of many lengthened processes the dwelling place of older economies that have now gone by but whereof the vestiges subsist even to the present day, both to the needless alarm of those who befriend the cause of Christianity, and to the unw^arrantable triumph of those who have assailed it.
;

27.

Let us never quit the strongholds of the

unless

Christian argument in hazarding a mere affair of

outposts,

we

are quite sure of the ground

we

stand

upon.

There

are

certain

zealous

defenders of Christianity

who

in this

way have done

an injury to the cause. And it does give rise to a most unnecessary waste of credit and confidence, it does give the enemies of religion a most unneces-*
triumph, when its defenders expose their ignorance in the maintenance of a position, which
sary

ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORLD.

257

even though given up leaves Christianity as firmly based as ever, on those miraculous and prophetic and experimental evidences which substantiate the Bible as the authentic record of an authentic communication from Heaven to Earth, as a Book
indited

by holy men of God, who stood charged,

not with the matters of physical science, but with

those transcendently higher matters which relate to
the moral guidance
species.

and the moral destiny of our

28. Yet whatever room there might be for wise and sound policy in managing the Christian argument, there is no reason at all for the pusillanimous
feeling of dismay.

Our cause may

suffer a partial

from the mismanagement ^but not all the strength and subtlety of its friends of its most powerful adversaries can achieve its Those days have gone by permanent overthrow. of triumphant anticipation to the enemies of the

and temporary

discredit

cros?,

when

the wit of Voltaire, and the eloquence

into

and the sophistry of Hume, entered menacing combination on the side of infideUty. These have all been withstood and on the arena, where many too, of literary and intellectual debate a feat of championship has been performed, in repelling those successive attacks, which under the semblance of philosophy have been made upon the For after all it is but a semblance and Faith, That demi-infidel spirit, which for nothing more.
of Rousseau,

a generation or two has kept such hold of the seats

its ascendancy there till Those an age of little men. great master-spirits of a former age, after whom

of philosophy, did not find

we had sunk down

to

258

RECAIMTULATION OF EVIDENCE.

and

may be called a second-rate philosophy, were wholly exempted from it. In the days of proudest achievement and most colossal minds it was comparatively unknown
there appeared the .pigmies of what
so far

from feeling a chsgrace or a descent

the illustrious names of Newton and Locke and Bacon and Boyle stand all associated wdth the defence and illustration of it.
in Christianity,

CHAPTER
On
the Strength

III.

of the Evidences for a God

in the

Phenomena of Visible and External Nature,

1.

We

include

among

the

phenomena

of external

nature whatever can be exposed to the observation

of human eyes and therefore, the organization and mechanism of our own bodies. There is distinct and additional evidence for a God and that too, we think, the strongest and most influential of any, grounded on a phenomenon purely mental, and so coming under the dominion of consciousness alone. This we shall advert to afterwards but meanwhile, we should hke to ot'er a brief recapitulation of what we deem to be the strong points of the

Theistical argument, as far as

it

has yet been prothat the

ceeded

in

that by

means
lies.

of a condensed view -we

it is

may
2.

perceive distinctly wherein

main
is

force of the reasoning

'i'he
tirst

strong poiiit of this argument

groin)ded on the distinction v.hich v>e have already

UECAPITULATIOX OF EVIDENCE.

259

endeavoured to make palpable between tbe laws of In the matter and the collocations of matter.

reasonmg
matter,

for

God

we

certainly do not

from the mere existence of remark any strong

point of argument

whatever.

And

then,
is

when
given

this argument from the existence of matter

up, there remains another obscure and indeterminable controversy about its properties, as to which
of them may be essential, and which of them must have been communicated at the will and by the appointment of a devising and purposing and intelliNow so long as the argument tarries gent Being.
either at the existence or at the laws of matter,

we

do not think that we have yet come to any lucid or We hold effective consideration upon the subject.
that
at
this

part

of

the question the cause of

Natural Theology has sutFered from the confidence joined with the obscurity of those reasonings which
have been made use of by its supporters ; and that it were therefore a mighty service to the cause did we separate what in it is decisive and what in it is
doubtful from each other.
3.

They

by

far the

are the collocations, then, which form most unequivocal tokens of a Divinity

that the material world has to offer.

We

under-

stand the term, in a more comprehensive sense than ihat which is conveyed by its mere etymology.

We mean not only that the parts of matter have been placed in right correspondence to each other but that these parts, so placed, have been rightly sized and rightly shaped, for some obviously beneficial

end of the combination in questioji and moreover that forces of a right intensity and direc*

260
tion

RECAPITULATION OF EVIDENCE.
have been made to meet together so as to be The world is and the strong circumof such collocations

productive of some desirable result.

full

stance

is,

that there

is

nothing in the yet ascertained

laws of matter that could have given rise to them

insomuch
w^ere
true,

that

if

at

this

moment any

of

them
these
It
is

destroyed, there appears nothing in

laws which could possibly replace them.

that
in

astronomy, the

argument founded
it

on these,
stances

is all

the less impressive, that

requires

but the concurrence of few independent circumto

complete

the

astronomical
is

system.

Such a concurrence however

in virtue of this
it is,

indispensable

and
from

that the planetarium has been

so exquisitely formed as never to deviate far

mean

state,

but only to
it

oscillate

little

either

side

of

way on
its

else

the

system would have

contained wdthin
destruction.
is,

itself

the elements of
atheistical

own
beau-

It

marks what the

tendency

that

La

Place should have ascribed

this

tiful result to

a law, and not to the collocations.

have felt throughout his reasonings, was that the plausibiUty of atheism chiefly lay. But this also carries in it an intimation to us, wherein it is that the main strength lies of No doubt, the law the argument for a Divinity. is indispensable, and enters as one element into But we have already noticed that the calculation. and the collocations are equally indispensable

He

seems

to

wherein

it

they enter as other elements into the calculation.

So
tiad

that

if

ever a time was

if

when

these collocations

were

not,

the present order of the heavens have

a commencement,

there

seems nothing in

RECAPITULATION OF EVIDENCE.

261

any of the discovered laws or forces of matter They seem which could have originated them. only referable to the fiat and finger of a God.
4.

But

the

argument gathers prodigiously

collocations

in

strength,

when we descend from

the celestial to
;

the

terrestrial

of things

from the

contingencies which meet together in the formation

meet together from the anatomical system an in the formation of simple mechanism of the heavens into which so
of an astronomical, to those which
;

few simphcities are required to enter, to those complex organic mechanisms which require such a prodigiously varied and manifold combination.

Could we but demonstrate a commencement

of infinity for a

for

them, then the argument rises to almost the force

God.

And
may

it

seems impossible to
as
to

escape from the belief of such a commencement,

whatever opinion we

entertain

the

authority of the professed historical vouchers for

the historical fact of a creation.

If that authority

no practical need, at least, for any further reasoning on the subject. But if, on the other hand, it be set aside, is has been done by many on the strength of certain geological theories, then our argument is complete there be the palpable if in these very theories,
be deferred
to,

then there

is

commencement to the present order of is what we have endeavoured to demonstrate not that we have any distrust in the authority of Moses as an historian but that wo
proofs of a
things.

This

were all the sides of our argument, and that all round it is impregnable capable, therefore, of being shaped to every variety
hold
it

right to

show as

it


^.^'2.

RECAIMTULATION OF EVIDENCE.
and of gaming proselytes
all

of speculation,

to its high

cause from the disciples of

5. this

the sciences.

Now

the most essential

is

stepping-stone of

argument

a doctrine that has become the

almost universal creed of naturalists

the vast majority of

that there
;

ia

no spontaneous generation, at least in reference to

known

species

to

which we
It is

superadd the equally admitted doctrine is no transmutation of the species.

that there
now

upwards of a century since the evidence of the former became so palpable, as to constitute it into an article of philosophical belief and the advocates of Theism in that day, were not blind to the imWe will find it, and deservedly, portance of it. the subject of gratulation and triumph to Bentley and others. It goes to establish an impassable barrier between the physiological on the one hand, and the chemical or the mechanical on the other insomuch that we have never distinctly made out of

all

the processes in chemistry, or of

all

the principles

and powers approximate

in natural philosophy, that they

to the formation of

even an organic being,

at least of an organic being

which has the property

of self-transmission.
it

may be

said that

Of almost all our lining races we do not perceive so much as

it

a rudimental or abortive tendency to

whereas,

had there been an equivocal generation, and had our present animal and vegetable races originated
in

such a lucky combination as favoured their complete development, we should for one instance that succeeded have witnessed a thousand fi-ustrated in the progress

all

nature teeming, as
;

it

were

'w

ith

abortions innumerable

and

for

each

RECAPITULATION OF EVIDENCE.

203

new species brought to perfection under our eyes, we should have beheld millions falling short ai
and at all the progressive stages some embryo stifled in the bud, or some half-finished monster checked by various adverse elements and forces in its path to vitality. Now in the whole compass of observation, no sucli V/e do not see any phenomena are to be found. we are at all familiar with which species of the and wait in vain for brousrht forward in this wav such from the immatured buddings of animal and
the incipient
of formation, with

vegetable formation.

Each
in
its

actual variety through

the great extent of the ascertained physiological

kingdom
distinct

is

perfect

way

and

there

is

mvariable lino of transmission in which,

but nevser out of which, we behold the production Could we only demonstrate then of each of them.
a commencement for
took place a most
varied
collocation
all

or for any of these lines,

to the period

we should be conducted

when

there

skilful,

a most complete, a most

that,

and

by means which

nature, that great goddess of the infidel philosophy,

as far as the eye of philosophy ever has explored,

does not hold in anv of her maa^azines.

^Ye should

see, in striking exemplification, the collocations of

matter taking place, and by other means than by

with

any laws of matter which we at least are acquainted and on comparing the maniibld fitness of the

collocations with the impotency of the laws, vre

should have the nearest experimental argument that

can be given for the energy of a creative wordj for

the
fiat

and the forthgoings of a Deity.

then, even of any of oiu*

6.

The commencement,

564

RECAPITULATION OF EVIDENCE.
would seem to decide Let us by any means be made to

aninial or vegetable races

tins question.

any of the existing generations, that historihad a first and a definite orighi ; and this of itself would carry in it the demonstration of a God. But the proper argument in behalf of this or of any and to overhistorical fact is historical evidence
of
cally
it

know

look the strength of such evidence for a creation in

the Jewish Scriptures were not merely unchristian

but unphilosophical.

Yet

it

is

with the

air,

and

apparently under the sanction of philosophy that

this

evidence has of late been contravened.

of geological science
to

The

plausibilities

or speculation
it.

have been brought

bear against

Instead of

looking to the narrative of scripture,

we

are called
certain

upon

to

look at the

demonstration of

lengthened processes which this science would substitute, and wherewith it would set aside the

Yet in these very processes authority of Moses. do we behold, and in characters the most vivid and In the discernible, the footsteps of a Deity.
attempt to escape from Christianity, geologists have been caught or involved, more surely in Under all systems which ascribe to matter theism.

an

indefinite antiquity,
is

each successive economy in

to contain within itself the

our world

supposed

elements of decay, or to be exposed to certain This vexed processes of violence and destruction.

and agitated globe has been conceived of as the

theatre of such revolutions, that though the earth
itself in

matter and substantive being has survived

frail

them, the

organic creatures upon

It

its

surface

cculd not have survived them.

matters not how

RECAPITULATION OF EVIDENCi:.

265

whether

the alleged catastrophes have been brought about

by fire from the centre, or by ocean heaved from its old resting-place, and, in one mighty resistless tide, sweeping, as with the besom
of destruction,

those

continents

on which

the

animals of a former era had for thousands of ages

held their unmolested habitation. It is enough if by one catastrophe whole species or genera have^ been extinguished and if by an indefinite number of them throughout past eternity all the genera at one
;

time in the world might

now have
of

disappeared.

The

question

still is

unresolved, what the origin,

or whence the existence

our present races?

we are taught by most authoritative lessons. Not as we know from another of its lessons, by the transmutation of old species into new ones. Not by any combination that we have ever observed of all the known powers and principles in creation and thus are we enabled to refer those things in nature which of all others have most exquisite and manifold collocations the most certainly to a definite origin, the most nearly to the
generation,
its

Not by spontaneous

natural science, in one of

finger of a Creator.
7. There is another strong point in the argument and which has been turned with great effect by theistical writers to the service of the cause. In reasoning on the perfect symmetry and com;

modiousness of the animal machine, there is a certain infidel evasion that has been made from the argument. It has been afiirmed that most of the
alleged fitnesses, in the construction of an organic
being, are not only indispensable to comfort but

VOL.

I.

2C}<J

RFXAPITULATION OF EVIDENCE.
life,

indispensable to

so that
of

the race could not

;

liave survived the

fore,
it

want

them

and, that there-

is

impossible from the nature of the thing

that any of the opposite unfitnesses can ever be found in any of our existing specimens. At this rate it will be observed of the actual races, that

they are regarded but as the fortunate

relics, vvhich,
all

amid an
and

infinity

of chances, have realized

the

necessary conditions for the upholding of

for the transmitting of
it

vitality,

to successive genera-

tions.

They

are the

lucky few, which,

by

tlie

mathematical doctrine of probabilities, were certainly to be looked for, in a countless multitude of

failures or abortions.
is

Any mal-convenance which

life

cannot from the very nature of the case be presented to observation

incompatible with

and therefore cannot be appealed to by reasoners on the atheistical side of the argument. Now they complain of this as the loss of an advantage whereas on the side of their antagonists there are so many random productions, they afnrm, which in a,n infinity of combinations are not more than might have been expected, but a plausible and confident appeal to which will make the worse appear the

better argument.
8. Our first reply to this has in some measure been anticipated. Any such embryo formations as we have supposed have never once been vritnessed by us. Exterior to the established line of

transmission, there

ment

is not even an incipient movebe seen, in any department of nature, towards the production of animals or vegetables

to

endowed

v.ith the faculty of

afterwards transmitting

RECAPiTLLATION OF EVIDENCE.
themselves.

267

We see no example in all the multiform combinations of chemistry and mechanics, however aided by various and variously blended physical influences, of any half-formed mechanism
of this sort passing

onward

to its completion,

but
is

arrested in

its

progress and thrown back again,

because of some deficient sense or organ that

essential
to
vitality.

The argument

represents

nature as teeming with abortions, whereas in the whole compass of nature, no such abortion, and not even the tendency to it has been found.

But our second reply we hold to be still more There can be conceived many thousands of mal-adjustments, each of which would be
9.

satisfactory.

incompatible with comfort and not incompatible

with

life

yet

none of which we ever see

realized.

The argument

of the atheists presupposes of every

adaptation in the animal frame, which

we plead

proof of design, that

it is

it is

essential to vitality

in

^but

not so.

The

nails, for

mities of our fingers,

example at the extreand the position of which we

ascribe to collocation but they to the blind direction of a physical law may be conceived to have been otherwise situated, without any such hazard to the life of man as would have led to the extincThey might have been ranged tion of the race. in separate horny excrescences round the wrist, instead of being ranged as now at the places where

they are most serviceable.

In like manner the

teeth might have been less conveniently posited

than they are actually

fixed

or the cutting and grinding

the very

teeth might have changed places, instead of being

and arranged

in

way

tliat

makes

26.8

RECAPITULATION OF EVIDENCE.

We are quite sure that them the most effective. by going in detail over the human body, many
thousands of changes could be pointed out, each
entailing severe trouble

and discomfort upon man,

yet without hazard to the being of the individual

or to the endurance of the species.

How

then
to

is

the

actual optimism of the

?

human frame
that
locality

be

no alteration which There is, would not deteriorate the mechanism ? no doubt, a certain limit, beyond which if the changes were to proceed, they would prove incompatible with life, and so expunge the specimen altogether from observation ^but how comes it, that between this limit and the actual state of every existing species we see nothing awkward,
accounted for
is
it

Why

can be proposed either in shape or

nothing misplaced, nothing that admits of being

mended

without one of

those inaptitudes or dis-

proportions

which either a blind nature, or a sportive and capricious chance, must have infallibly hence no idle and in myriads given rise to ?

excrescences in those complicated systems ?

How

comes each part to be in such exquisite harmony What but manifold experience with the whole ? could have taught the anatomist to ground such
confident inferences on the uses of every thing that he discovers in the animal framework and whence can it be, but from the actual design which pre-

sided over these formations, that,

when reasoning

on
the

final causes,

he

is

in the best possible track for

certainty,

Whence the enlargement of his science ? the almost axiomatic certainty of. the
is

position, that there

nothing useless in the anatQ

IIECAPITLLATIOX OT
mlcal
structure ?

J'.VIDEN'CE.

269

And

that,

on the contrary,

anatomists never reason more safely, than

ness.

when

they presume and reason on an universal useful-

And this principle so far from misleading, which in a random economy of things it would infallibly have done, has often been the instrument of anatomical discovery. Could this have been the case under a mere system either of headlong
forces, or of fortuitous combinations ?

Would not

the monstrous and the grotesque and the incon-

gruous have ever and anon been obtruded upon our view and when instead of this we behold such

significancy in every part

and

in every function of
tell

the physiological system, does not this

significantly of a
10.

most

God ?
infinity of

examples to the same As one instance out of the many, we find wings attached to the animals, who, from the smallness or comparative lightness of their bodies, can obtain the benefit of

There

is

an

effect in the inferior

creation.

them.

^Vhy not wings on horses and other large

animals, w^ho could shift well enough to live though

they could not use their wings ?

And

here there

occurs to us the remarkable instance of a congruity

in the parts of animals, greatly subservient to their

accommodation, yet experimentally proved in a We all be not essential to hfe. know that the necks of quadrupeds, as is magnififamiliar case to

cently set forth in the camelopard, are in general

commensurate with
proportion
is

their

fore legs.

The same

observed in birds especially those which feed upon grass. The obvious design of this collocation is that thev may be enabled t/;

270

RECAPITULATION OF EVIDENCE.

reach the ground conveniently v/ith their bills. Now there is no exception to this rule by whif.h
legs in land fowls

the length of the neck keeps pace with that of the but there is an exception in the
case of those water-fowls that feed on the produce
of water

bottoms as

the

much

larger in proportion than

swan whose neck is its legs, and also the

goose, both of which birds seek for their food in

Now it so the shmy bottom of lakes or pools. happens of the goose that it can live upon land with though the disproits long neck and short legs gives an obvious labours portion under which it besides, and gait its appearance to awkwardness we have no doubt, subjecting it to a certain degree Here then is one of inconvenience in feeding.

example of an incongruity consistent with life, and fully authorizing the question, why under a random or unintelligent economy of things, there is not an infinite multitude of such examples among It will be perceived of this one living animals ? example, that, while it both furnishes and illustrates the argument on which we now insist, it carries in it no exception to the wisdom of the
Creator.
habitat
is

The animal is
it

amphibious.
It

Its natural

the margin of lakes.

may
is

live

on

land, but

can

live

on water

and

furnished

with

its

long neck for the sake of the additional

this subject

food obtained from this latter element.

1 1.

Before quitting

we may remark
is

that the exception which takes place in the proportion

between the necks and the

that

legs

peculiar to
is

those birds

are webfooted.

Now

theie

aught,

we

v^'ould ask, in

a disproportion between

IIECAPI'IULATION OF EVIDENCE.

271

by the mere operation produce these Or, can the adjustment of parts so remote webs ? and unconnected be ascribed to any thing but
necks and legs that
is fitted

of a blind and physical energy to

collocation ?
12.

There

is

a very pleasing information re-

cently given in a most entertaining

book of

travels

by Mr. Waterton.

It respects the sloth

an animal

which creeps along the ground with every symptom of distress, as if it laboured under the pain and
discomfort of some very grievous mal~adjustment.

According to the narrative of this very adventurous he has cleared up this apparent exception to the order of perfect adaptation throughout the
traveller,

animal kingdom.

The
is
is

creature,

it

would appear,
element.
Its

when on

the ground,

out of

its

natural habitat

among

the branches of trees,

which branches interlaced with each other afford a continuous path for hundreds of miles in the Its feet, it extensive forests of SoXith America.

would appear, were not made

suspend the animal with
its

for pressing

upon

the earth, but for lapping into each other, so as to

those horizontal branches, along vvhich

back undermost on it warps its

way from one

its'

tree to another.
it

When

it

regains
said,
it

natural situation,

instantly recovers,

it is

its

natural alacrity,

and exchanges the agoPA'

in a state of violence,

experienced,

when

for the

ease and enjoyment of one

who

feels himself at

home.

The frame and

habitudes of the creature

all

are thus found, as with

other animals, to be
its

exactly suited to the place of

so as no longer

to stand in the

way

proper occupation of the general

27*2

RECAPITULATION OF EVIDENCE,
is

doctrine, that each creature

perfect in

its

kind

and

all

very good.*

13.

In order to taste the richness and power of

details

the theistical argument, one would need to enter

upon the

of

it.

For doing aught

hkv-?

adequate justice to the theme,

we should go

piece-

meal-over the face of this vast and voluminous creation and show how in the exquisite textures of every leaf and every hair and every membrane^ Nature throughout all her recesses was instinct with contrivance, and in the minute as well as the magnificent announced herself the workmanship of a [Master's hand. We cannot venture on the statistics of so wide and so exuberant a territory. The variety in which we should lose ourselves, the Psalmist hath expressively designed by the epithet of "manifold" and this sets forth the significancy of thaf scriptural expression, " the manifold wisdom
;

of God."

It is to

us interminable.

When

told

that w^e might expatiate fof wrecks together on the

habitudes and economy of a single insect,

we may
to

guess

how arduous

the enterprise would be,

traverse the whole length and breadth of a land, so

profusely overspread and so densely peopled with

the tokens of a planning and presiding Deity.
*

It

Dr. Buckland has treated this subject scientifically in a recent paper, " On the Adaptation of the Structure of the Sloths to their peculiar mode of Life," in which he demonstrates, that, so far from being chargeable with imperfection or monstrosity, the construction of the sloth " adds another striking case to the endless instances of perfect mechanism and contrivance, which we find pervading every organ of every creature, when viewed in relation to the office it is destined to fulfil and afi'ords a new exemplification of the principle, which has been so admii-ably illustrated by the judicious Paley, * that the animal is fitted to
;

its

state/**

RECAPITULATION OF EVIDENCE.
would be
to

2/3

compass all philosophy it would be Encyclopedia of human knowledge and, out of the spoils collected from every possible quarter of contemplation, to make an offering to Ilim of whom it has been eloquently said, that He sits enthroned on the riches of the universe. It would be to trace the footsteps of a Being, who,
to describe the
;

while He wields with giant strength the orbs of immensity, pencils every flower upon earth and

hangs a thousand dew-drops around it at one time walking in greatness among the wonders of the firmament, and at another, or rather at the

same
less

time, Mattering beauty of all sorts in counthues and inimitable touches around our lowly

He hath indeed lighted up most gloriously the canopy that is over our heads He hath shed unbounded grace and decoration on the terrestrial platform beneath us. Yet these are only parts of his ways for the whole of his Productiveness and Power who can comprehend ? This will be the occupation of Eternity amid that diversity of operations at present so
dwelling-places.

baffling,

to

scan the counsels of the

limits

God who
as

worketh
14.

all in all.

Our

do not permit so
field

entrance upon this

much

an

^let

us therefore recom-

mend

the study of those authors w ho have ventured upon the enterprise, and have followed it up with a more or a less successful execution. Mixed up

with the unsatisfactory metaphysics of that period,

the reader will find a
tion, in the

good deal of

solid

argumenta-

Sermon preached about

the beginning

of the last rentury at the

Boyle Lectureship


274
TlECAPITULATfON OF KVIUENCE.
this question,

we ha^ve Ray and Derham Even these than for them all put together. however have been now superseded by the masterly
though we confess that on
greater value for the works of

performance of Dr. Paley

not too

a writer of whom

it is

much

to say, that

he has done more than

any other individual who can be named to accommodate the defence both of the Natural and the
Christian .Theology to the general understanding
of our times.

He,

in particular,
eflfect

has illustrated

wdth great feUcity and

the argument for a

God from

those final causes which

in the appearances of nature

and,

may be

descried

altJ||/Dugh

he has
is

confined himself chiefly to one depart ment, that

the anatomical, yet that being far the most prolific

of this sort of evidence, he has altogether composed from it a most impressive pleading on the side of Theism. He attempts no eloquence; but there is all the power of eloquence in his graphic representation of natural scenes and natural objects just as a painter of the Flemish School may without any creative faculty of his own, but on the strength of his imitative faculties only, minister to the spectators of his art all those emotions both of the Sublime and Beautiful which the reality of visible things is And so without aught of the fitted to awaken. imaginative, or aught of the etherial about him but in virtue of the just impression which external things make upon his mind, and of the admirable sense and truth wherewith he reflects them back again, does our author by acting merely the part of a faithful copyist, give a fuller sense of the richness and repleteness of this argument, than is


itMLAPl'I'Ll.a'riON n[i:Vt IJI.NCI:.

..>

ov c:in be effected
aiil.-itioiis
v.'irh

by

all

tho eialKn-atioiis of
it

iv.i

oratory.

Of
is

liim

as emphatic justice as of

may be said, and any man who ever

no nonsense about him-^and most appropriate to the .subject that he is treating, and these bodied forth hi words each of which is instinct with significanc-y and most strikingly appropriate we have altogether a performance neither vitiated in expression by one clause or epithet of verbiage, nor vitiated in substance by one impertinence of prurient or misplaced imagination. His predomlnent faculty IS judgment and therefore it is, that ho is always sure to seize on the relevancies or srruib^^ points of an argument, which never suffer -from his mode of rendering them, because, to use a lamihar but
wrote, that there
so,

with

all

his conceptions

expressive phrase, they are at

well put.

all

times exceedingly

His perfect freedom from all aim and all affectation is a mighty disencumbrance to him he having evidently no other object, than to give forth in as clear and correct deUneation as possible, those impressions which nature and truth had spontaneously made on his own just and vigorous understanding. So that, altogether, although we should say of the mind of Paley that cast it was of a decidedly prosaic or secular although w^e should be at a loss to find out wha^s termed the poetry of his character, and doubt fact w^hether any of the elements of poetry were there although never to be found in the walk of sentiment or of metaphysics, or indeed in any high transcendental walk whatever whether of the reason or of the fancy yet to him there most unquestioii-

276

RECAPITULATION OF EVIDENCE.
His

ably belonged a very high order of faculties.

most

original

work
;

is

the Hora? Paulinae, yet even

of the observational than
all, it

there he discovers

more

the inventive

for after

was but a new track

of observation which he opened up, and not a noAv

species of argument which he devised that mi^ht

immortalize

its

author, like the discovery of a before

unknown

calculus in the mathematics.

AH

the

mental exercises of Paley lie vithin the limits of sense and of experience nor would one over think of awarding to him the meed of genius. \'et in the whole staple and substance of his thoughts there was something better than genius the homebred product of a hale and well-conditioned intellect,

that dealt in the ipsa corpora of truth, and studied use and not ornament in the drapery wherewith he
it. We admit that he had neither the organ of high poetry nor of high metaphysics and perhaps would have recoiled from both as from

invested

some unmeaning mysticism of which nothing could be made. Yet he had most efficient organs notwithstanding

and

the

Volumes he has given

to

the world, plain perspicuous and powerful, as was

the habitude of his own understanding fraught throughout with meaning, and lighted up not in the gorgeous colouring of fancy but in the clearness of truth's own element these Volumes form one of

wS most precious
15.
It

contributions which, for the last

half century, have been added to the theological

literature of our land.

has been said that there

is

nothing more

uncommon than common sense. It is the perfection of his common sense which makes Paley at once so

RECAPITULATION OF EVIDENCE.
I

277

and so valuable a specimen of our nature. mind make up a most interesting variety, and constitute him into what may One likes to be termed a literary phenomenon. behold the action and reaction of dissimilar minds and therefore it were curious to have ascertained how he would have stood affected by the perusal of a volume of Kant, or by a volume of lake poetry. We figure that he would have liked Franklin and that, coming down to our day, the strength of Cobbett would have had in it a redeeming quality to make even his coarseness palatable. He would have abhorred all German sentimentalism and of the a priori argument of Clarke, he would have wanted the perception chiefly because he wanted patience for it. His appetite for truth and sense would make him intolerant of all which did not
are

The

characteristics of his

engage the discerning faculties of his soul and from the sheer force and promptitude of his decided judgment, he would throw off instanter all that he
felt to

be uncongenial

to

it.

The
if

general solidity

by gravitation on the terra firma of experience, and restrained his flight into any region of transcendental speculation. Yet Coleridge makes obeisance to him and diflferently moulded as these men were, this testimony from the distinguished metaphysician and poet does honour to both. 16. Having thus dwelt as long as our limits will admit, on the evidences of design in external nature it is all important to remark, that on the one hand there might be innumerable most lucid
of his as

mind posted him

indications of design in p^irticnlar instances, while


*273

IlLCAPiTULATION OF EVIDEXCE.

on the other a mystery impenetrable may hang

over the general design of creation.
that there
is

The

lesson

a presiding intelligence, ma\^ shine

most vividly forth in the details of the universe and yet tlie drift, or what we should term the policy of the universe, may be wrapt in profoundest secrecy from our view. The world may teem all
and yet end which the contriver had in view, the moving cause which impelled him to the formation
the
of the world, or the final destination that awaits
it,

over with the indications of contrivance

comprehension of men, who nevertheless can read the inscription of a manifold and marvellous wisdom on every page in the volume of nature. So that on the one hand there may be overpowering light, v.hile on the other
all

may

baffle

the

there

is hopeless and unconquerable darkness. In the workmanship of nature we behold an infinity

of special adaptations to special objects, each of which bespeaks a sovereign mind that plans and purposes yet there may the deepest obscurity

hang over the question, what is the plan or purpose of this workmanship on the whole ? It is just as when looking to an individual man, we cannot
but recognise the conceptions of an architect in the teeth, and the eyes, and the hands, and all the
parts of manifest

subserviency which belong to remain unable to solve the enigma of his being, or to fathom the general conception of

him

^yet

the Divinity in thus ushering a creature to existence, that he in despair.

may live And what

in restless vanity,
is

and die
is

true of an individual

true of a species or of a imiverse.

Throughout,


RECAPITL'I.ATION OF rVIDENCE.
'270

and
its

in its separate parts, it

may be pregnant
in reference

Avith

the notices of a Divinity

yet

both to

creation. and its government, to the principle in

it

which
it

originated and the consummation in which

issues, there
all
is,

may be an overhanging mystery

and confident on the question
abide notwithstanding in deepest

and man,
that

clear

God

may

ignorance of His purposes and His ways.

BOOK
HUMAN
MIND.

III.

PROOFS FGll THE BEING AND CHARACTER OF GOD IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE

CHAPTER

I.

General Considerations on the Evidence afforded

by the Phenomena and Constitution of
the

Human Mind for

1.

the

Being of a God.

There are many respects

God, given
body,
forth
differs

for a

human

in which the evidence by the constitution of the from the evidence given forth
spirit.

by the constitution of the human

the latter evidence that
arly to deal
;

It is with

but at

we have now more pecuhpresent we shall only advert

and special
characteristics.

to

a few of

its distinct

The
tion

subject will at length open into greater detail,

and development

yet

a brief preliminary exposiit

may be

useful at the outset, should

difficulties

only

convey some notion of the

2.

and particu-

larities of this bra.nch of the

argument.
the
iax greater
all

leading distinction between the material

is,

and the mental fabrications

complexity of the former, at least greater to

human

observation.

Into that system of means

which has been formed for the object of seeing, there enter at least twenty separate contingencies, the abgence of anv one of which would either

ON THE EVIDENCE FOR A GOD, &C.

281

gether destroy

derange the proper function of the eye, or altoit. We have no access to aught

Hke the observation of a mental structure ; and all of which our consciousness inforn)s us is a succession of mental phenomena. Now in these we are sensible of nothing but a very simple antecedent followed up, and that generally on tlie instant, by a like simple consequent. We have the feeling and still more the purpose of benevolence, followed up by complacency. We have the feeling or purpose, and still more the execution of malignity, or
rather the recollection of that execution, followed

up by remorse. However manifold the apparatus may be which enables us to see an external object

when the
in

sight

itself,

instead of the consequent

in a material succession,

becomes the antecedent

a mental one
it

or, in

other w ords,

when

it
;

passes
then,

from a material
as soon, does

to a purely

mental process

pass from the complex into the

is

simple

and, accordingly, the sight of distress

followed up, without the intervention of any curi-

mechanism that w^e are at all by an immediate feeling of compassion. These examples will, at least, suffice to mark a strong distinction between the two inquiries, and to show that the several arguments drawn from each must at least be formed of very different
ously elaborated

conscious

of,

materials.
3. There are two distinct ways in which the mind can be viewed, and which constitute different modes of conception, rather than diversities of substantial and scientific doctrine. The mind may

either

be regarded as a congeries of different

2S2
faculties
;

ON THE EVIDENCE FOR A GOD

or as a simple

and

indivisible substance,

with the susceptibility of passing into

states.

different
it,

By

the former

mode

of viewing

the

memory, and the judgment, and the conscience, and the will, are conceived of as so many distinct

but co-existent parts of mind, which

is

thus

represented to us
for the

somewhat
its

in

the light

of

an

organic structure, having separate members, each

discharge of

own

appropriate mental

function or exercise.

By

the latter, which

we
it,

deem

also the

more

felicitous

mode

of viewing

these distinct mental acts, instead of being referred

to distinct parts of the mind, are conceived of as
distinct acts of the whole mind, insomuch that the whole mind remembers, or the whole mind judges,

or the w^hole

mand

wills,

or,

in short, the

whole

mind passes
of

into various intellectual states or states

emotion,

according to
it

the

circumstances by

which at the time

nature of

is

beset, or to the present

its employmxcnt. We might thus either regard the study of mind as a study in contemporaneous nature and we should then, in the delinea;

tion of its various parts, be assigning to

ral history,

it

or we might regard the study

;

a natuof

as a study in successive nature

then, in the description of
its

mind and we should

various states, be

When such a phrase as the anatomy of the human mind is employed by philosophers, we may safely guess that the former is the conception which they are inassigning to
it

a natural philosophy.

ciined to form of
It
is

it.*

When

such a phrase again

under

down

map

this conception too that writers propose of the liumaa tUcuUics.


IN

THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION.

283

as the piiysiology of the

human mind

is

made use

of, the latter is the conception by which, in all It is thus that probability, it has been suggested.

Dr. Thomas Brown designates the science of mind With him, in fact, it is altoas mental physiology.
gether a science of sequences, his very analysis being the analysis of results, and not of compounds.
4.

Now,
It

in either
is

tion there

the

same strength
this,

view of our mental constituof evidence for a

W regarded
is

God.

matters not for

whether the mind

as consisting of so

many

useful parts,
It

or as endovv-ed with as

many

useful properties.

the number, whether the one or other, of these out of w^hich the product is formed of evidence for

a designing cause. The only reason why the useful dispositions of matter are so greatly more prolific of this evidence than the useful laws of matter, is,
that the former so greatly

outnumber the

latter.

Of the twenty independent circumstances which enter into beneficial concurrence in the formation
of an eye, that each of
situation of optimism,

them should be found in a and none of them occupying

either

an mdifferent or a hurtful position it is this which speaks so emphatically against the hypothesis of a random distribution, and for the hypothesis Yet this is but one out of of an intelligent order.
the

wherewith the animal in such marvellous teems economy thickens and

many

like specimens,

profusion.

By

the doctrine of probabilities, the

mathematical evidence, in this question between the two suppositions of intelligence or chance, will

be found, even on many a single organ of the human framework, to preponderate vastly more

284

ON THE EVIDENCE FOR A GOD

than a million-fold on the side of the former.

We
to

do not affirm of the

titute

human mind
and

that

it is

so des-

of all complication

variety,

as

be

deficient altogether in this sort of evidence.

there be but six laws or ultimate facts in the

tal

Let men-

constitution, with the circumstance of each of

;

beneficial and this of itself would yield no inconsiderable amount of precise and calculable proof, for our mental economy being a formation of contrivance, rather than one that is fortuitous or of blind necessity. It will at once be seen, however, why mind, just from its greater simplicity

them being

than matter, should contribute so

much

less to the

support of natural theism,

of that definite
is

mathematical evidence which

bination.
5.

and founded on com-

But, although in the mental department of

creation, the

argument

for a
is

God

that

is

gathered

out of such materials,

other great
peculiar argument of

not so strong as in the

it does furnish a own, v.hich, though not grounded on mathematical data, and not derived from a lengthened and logical process of reasoning, is of a highly encctive and practical character not-

department

yet

its

withstanding.

It

has not less in

it

of the substance,
it

though

it

may have

greatly less in
it

of the sem-

blance of demonstration, that

is briefly,

consists of but one

It

step between the premises and the conclusion.

but cannot be more clearly and emphatically expressed than in the following sentence
.

" He

that formed the eye, shall he not see ?

He
that

that planted the ear, shall he not hear ?

He

teacheth

man knowledge,

shall

he not know?"

IN

THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION.

'285

That

the parent cause of intelligent beings shall be

itself intelligent is

an aphorism, which,

if

not de-

monstrable

in the

forms of
it

logic, carries in the

very

announcement of

a challenging power over the

all spirits.

acquiescence of almost
instant conviction, as
if

It is a thing of
its

seen in the light of

tiling

own
and

evidence,

more than a
It

of lengthened

laborious proof.

may be
it,

stigmatized as a mere

impression

nevertheless
If
it

the most of intellects go

as they

as readily along with

would from one

stately argu-

contiguous step to another of

mentation.
sion of a syllogism,

many a
its

cannot be exhibited as the concluit is

because of

own

inherent

right to be admitted there as the major proposition.

To

proscribe every such truth, or to disown

it

from

being truth, merely because incapable of deduction,

reasoning.

away the first principles of all would banish the authority of intuition, and so reduce all philosophy and knowledge for what is the to a state of universal scepticism first departure of every argument but an hituition, and what but a series of intuitions are its successive
would be
to cast
It

stepping-stones ?

We should soon hivolve ourselves

and darkness, did we
insist

in helpless perplexity

on

every thing being proved and on nothing being

assumed
of truth,

for valid

assumptions are the materials

office of

and the only

into so

argument

is

to

weave

them together
6.

many

pieces of instruction for

the bettering or enlightening of the species.

\Ve are not to estimate the strength or clearof

that

ness

Natural

Theology which obtains

the

tlu-oughout the mass of our popidation, by

impression of our scientific arguments upon their

286

ON THE EVIDENCE FOR A GOD

imderstaiidings

whether these be metaphysical, or

drawn i'rom the study of external nature. Whether they comprehend the reasoning that is grounded on
the arrangements of the material world or not, they arc in immediate contact with other phenomena,

which

powerfully convince them of a God.

more promptly suggest and far more With all the defect and inferiority w hich have been ascribed to
far

the department of mind, as being less fertile of

evidence for a
it is

God
is

than the department of matter,

to

where the most influential There may be a greater difficulty in evolving the mental than the material proofs but they are not on that account the less effective on the popular understanding when, without the formality of an inferential process, the most illiterate of the species recognise a presiding Deity in the felt workings of their own spirit, and more especially the felt supremacy of conscience within them. There seems but one Hep from the consciousness of the mind that is felt, for jo the conviction of the mind that originated that blind and unconscious matter cannot, by any
really in the form^er

of that evidence

be found.

of her combinations, evolve

is

tlie

a proposition seen in
felt to

its

phenomena of mind, own immediate light,

in-

and

be true w ith
It is to

all

the speed and certainty

of an axiom.

such truth, as being of

stant and almost universal consent, that,

to

more than

any other, we owe the existence of a natural among men yet, because of the occult mysticism wherewith it is charged, it is weJl that ours is a cause of such rich and various argument
theology
:

that in her service

we can

build

up

syllogisms,

and

IN

THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION.

287

expatiate over wide fields of induction, and amass

stores of evidence, and, on
tiie

useful dispositions

of matter alone, can ground such large computations of probability in favour of

or

maker
7.

for all things, as

an intelligent cause might silence and satisfy

the reasoners.
Still

both with philosophers and with the

belief

common
intuition

people, the

of

God may be
we
confine

altogether a thing of inference, and not of direct

and perhaps
men
there

it

were

safer, did

ourselves to this idea.

Yet
is

let

us advert though
the notion,
that

but

briefly
all

and incidentally

to

among

a certain immediate and

irresistible sense of

God.

We

are by no

means

sure but there may.

We

at least conceive that

with but one fact within the hold and the intimate
conviction of

process therefrom,
Deity.

and but one step of an inferential we come to the most powerful and practical impression which nature gives of a
all,

This fact

is

the felt suprema'Cy of conis

science v/ithin us

and the conclusion

living

the actual

Judge and Ruler over us. We shall not pretend to say whether there may not be a quicker discernment than this nay even
supremacy of a

the instantaneous view of a

still
it

God

in the light of

more

direct manifestation.

We
such

should feel as

liable to the

charge of mysticism, did

we make
intuition.

any confident

averment

of

an

But we may
it is

at least say of all innate thoughts

if

and

impressions of the Divinity, that,

they do exist,

no mysticism

to affirm of them, that they will

be

oi*

great practical effect in religion

even though
They

we

should not be able to ascertain them.

288

ON THE EVIDENCE FOR A GOU

are not the less influential, though unseen

moraiiy
Even
if

of powerful operation, though metaphysically never

analyzed or beyond the reach of analysis.

they suggest but the imagination of a
laying
tain

God

they

are not without their importance in Theology

man under
subject,

a most direct obligation to enter-

the

and fastening a great moral

it.

delinquency upon his irreligious neglect of

8.

one inquiry in Natural Theology, which the constitution of the mind, and the adapthere
is

And

tation of that constitution to the external world,

are

pre-eminently

fitted

to

illustrate

we

mean
to

the character of the Deity.

We

hold that the

attestation

material

universe affords decisive

His natural perfections, but that it leaves the question of His moral perfections involved in profoundest mystery. The machinery of a serpent's
tooth, for the obvious infliction of pain

and death

upon its victims, may speak as distinctly for the power and intelligence of its Maker as the machinery
of those teeth which, formed and inserted for simple
mastication, subserve the purposes of a bland and

beneficent economy.

An

apparatus of suffering

and torture might furnish as clear an indication of design, though a design of cruelty, as does an apparatus for the ministration of enjoyment furnish
the
indication
also

of design,

but a design of

benevolence.

Did we

confine our study to the

material constitution of things,

we should meet

with the enigma of

dictory appearances.

many

perplexing and contra-

We hope to make it manifest,

if

that in the study of the mental constitution, this

enigma

is

greatly alleviated,

not wholly done


IN

THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION.

289

away; and, at all events, that within this peculiar department of evidence there lie the most full and unambiguous demonstrations, which nature hath any where given to us, both of the benevolence

and the righteousness of God. 9. If, in some respects, the phenomena of mind
tell

us less decisively than

distinctly

the

phenomena of
tell

matter, of the existence of God, they

us far

and decisively of His attributes. We have already said that, from the simplicity of the mental system, we met with less there of that evidence for design which is founded on combination, or on that right adjustment and adaptation of the numerous particulars, which enter into a complex assemblage of things, and which are essential to some desirable fulfilment. It is not, therefore, through the medium of this particular evidence the evidence which lies in combination; that the phenomena and processes of mind are the best for
telling us of the

more

Divine existence.
all

But

if

otherto

wise, or previously told of this,

we hold them

be the best throughout

the Divine character!
distinct grounds, that

nature for telling us of

if

once convinced, on matters not how simple the antecedents or the consequents of any

For

God

is, it

particular succession

may

be.

It is

enough that
any given

we know what
what the

the terms of the succession are, or

effect is

wherewith

God

wills

thing to be followed up.

ordination,

The

character of the

and so the character of the ordainer, depends on the terms of the succession and not on the nature of that intervention or agency, whether more or less complex, by which it is VOL. T. N
;

290

OK TUB EVIDENCB FOS A GOD

brought about.

And

should either term of the

succession, either the antecedent or consequent, be some moral feeling, or characteristic of the mind,

then the inference comes to be a very distinct and That the sight of distress, for decisive one.

example, should be followed up by compassion, is an obvious provision of benevolence, and not of cruelty, on the part of Him who ordained our

mental constitution.
ness

Again, that a feehng of kind-

m the heart should be followed up by a feeUng

it,

of complacency in the heart, that in every vb:tuous affection of the soul there should be so much to

gladden and harmonize

that there should always

be peace within when there is conscious purity or rectitude within ; and, on the other hand, that mahgnity and Hcentiousness, and the sense of any moral transgression whatever, should always* have the effect of discomforting, and sometimes even of agonizing the spirit of man that such should be

the actual workmanship and working of our nature, speaks most distinctly, we apprehend, for the

general righteousness of

Him who

constructed

its

An omnimachinery and estabhshed its laws. potent patron of vice would have given another make, and a moral system with other and opposite tendencies to the creatures whom he had formed.

He

would have established

oil

different sequences;

and, instead of that

distils,

of gladness which

now

as

if

from a secret spring of

satisfaction,

upon the upright; and, instead of that bitterness and disquietude which are now the obvious attendants on every species of deUnquency, we should iiave had the reverse phenomena of a reversely

Hf
constituted

THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION.

species,

29\

whose minds were in their

state of wildest disorder

when

kindling with the

resolves of highest excellence; or

were in

their

best and happiest, and most harmonious mood,

when brooding over

1

the purposes of dishonesty, or

frenzied with the passions of hatred and revenge.

0.

In

this special track of observation,

we have
a
far

at least the

means or data

for constructing

more

satisfactory demonstration of the divine attri-

butes, than can possibly be gathered, we think, from the ambiguous phenomena of the external world. In other words, it will be found that the mental phenomena speak more distinctly and decisively for the character of God thaiwlo the

phenomena of creation. And it should not be forgotten that whatever serves to indicate
material
the character, serves also to confirm the existence
of the Divine Being.

For

this character,

whose

impressed on nature, is not an abstraction, but must have residence on a concrete and substantive Being, who hath communicated a transcript of Himself to the workmanship of His
signatures
are

own

hands.

It

is

thus,

tha.t,

although in this

department there is greater poverty of evidence for a God, in as far as that evidence is grounded on a skilful disposition of parts, ^yet, in respect of another kind of evidence, there is no such poverty ; for, greatly more replete as we hold it to be with the unequivocal tokens of a moral character, we, by that simple but strong Hgament of proof which connects a character with an
special

existence, can, in the study of

mind

alone, find

firm steppmg-stone

to

the existence of a

a God.

292

ON THE EVIDENCE FOR A GOD

universe
is

Our

sometimes termed the mirror of

it.

Him who made

But

the optical reflection,

whatever it may be, must be held as indicating the reahty which gave it birth ; and, whether we discern there the expression of a reigning benevolence, or a reigning justice, these must not be dealt with
as the aerial qr
qualities alone,

the fanciful personifications

of

but as the substantial evidences of a just and benevolent, and, withal, a Hving God. So that after all, if the constitution of our moral
nature bear upon
character of God,
it it

decisive indications of the at the

must furnish
Being.

same time
discovery

strong indications of his

The

an existence. of a We cannot separate qualities of any description from the proper substance in which they reside and, if told of an absolute goodness and rightness in the economy of the universe, we cannot dissever our observation of such attributes as these from our beUef of a good, and righteous, and withal a hving
chajpicter implies the dicovery of

Governor by
11.

whom

they are reahzed.

But beside this peculiar evidence afforded by mind for the being of a God, we shall, in connexion with the study of its phenomena and its laws meet with much of that evidence, which lies in the manifold, and, withal, happy conjunction of

many

by the meeting together of is accomplished, brought about in that one way and in no other. For it ought further to be recollected,
individual things,

which, some distinctly beneficial end

that, simple as the constitution of the

is,

human .mind
it

and proportionally unfruitful, therefore, as may be of that argument for a God, which

is

IN

THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION.

293

founded on the right assortment and disposition of many parts, or even of many principles ; yet, on reflection will it be found that the materials even of this peculiar argument lie abundantly within the
province of this contemplation.

For

f)eside

the

mental constitution of man, we can view the adaptation of that constitution to external nature.

We

might demonstrate, not only that the mind is rightly constituted in itself, but that the mind is rightly placed in a befitting theatre for the exercise of its powers. We might prove of the world and its
various objects that they are suited to the various
capacities of this inhabitant

this

moral and inteUithat the

fit

gent creature, of

whom

it

is

palpable

things which are around

him bear a

relation to

the laws or the properties which are within him.

There
cation.

is

ample room here

for the evidence of collo-

Yet

there remains this distinction

between
is

the mental and coporeal economy of man, that

whereas the evidence arising from collocation

more
itself,

and manifold in the bodily structure than even in its complex and numerous adaptarich

tions to the outer

world ; * the like evidence in the

is

mental department,
subjective mind,
of
its

meagre, as afforded by the

the evidence

when compared with

various adjustments

objective

and fitnesses to the universe around it, whether of man's

intellectual

moral constitution to the state of human society,

or of his
to the various objects

of

physical investigation.
Yet Paley has a most interesting chapter on the adaptations to the human framework, though the main strength and copiousness of his argument lie in the anatomy of the framewcrk itself.
of external nature
*

294
12.

ON THE ETIDENCE FOR A GOD

The
great object of philosophy
is

to ascer-

which be this attempt she stops thort at a secondary law, which might be demonstrated by further analysis to be itself a com-

tain the simple or ultimate principles, into

phenomena of nature may by resolved. But it often happens that in

all the

analysis

plex derivative of the primitive or elementary laws. Until this work of analysis be completed, we shall
often mistake what is compound for what is simple, both in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of matter ^being frequently exposed to intractable

substances or intractable phenomena in both, which long withstand every effort that science makes for
their decomposition.
It is thus that the time is

not yet come, and

fully

never come, when we shall understand what be all the simple elements or simple laws of matter ; and what be all the distinct

may

elementary laws, or, as they have sometimes been termed, the ultimate facts in the constitution of the human mind. But we do not need to wait for this

communication, ere we can trace, in either department, the wisdom and beneficence of a Deity ^for many are both the material and mental processes

which might be recognised as pregnant with utility, and so, pregnant with evidence for a God, long
before
the

processes
is,

themselves

are
if

analyzed.
it

The

truth

that a secondary law,

do not

exhibit any additional proof of design in a distinct useful principle, exhibits that proof in a distinct

and useful
tion

disposition

of
is

parts

for,

generally

speaking, a secondary law

the result of an opera-

curcumstances.

by some primitive law, in peculiar and new For example, the law of the tides

IN
is

THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION.

295

and

a secondary law, resolvable into one more general elementary even the law of gravitation. But we might imagine a state of things, in which

the discovery of this connexion would have been as a sky perpetually mantled with a impossible,

cloudy envelopment, which,

whUe

it

did not inter-

cept the light either of the sun or moon, still hid In these these bodies from our direct observation. law of the and tides the of law the circumstances,
gravitation,

not have been identified by us

though identical in themselves, could and so, we might ;

have ascribed this wholesome agitation of the sea and of the atmosphere to a distinct power or principle in nature

affording

the distinct indication of

Now this both a kind and intelligent Creator. inference is not annihilated ^it is not even enfeebled by the discovery in question; for although the

good
the

arising
is

air,

ocean and tides in not referable to a pecuUar law it is at

from

tides in the

least referable to a peculiar collocation.

And

this

holds of

all

the useful secondary laws in the

If they

ma-

terial world.

cannot be alleged in evidence

for the

number

of beneficial principles in nature-^

they can at least be alleged in evidence for the number of nature's beneficial arrangements. If

they do not attest the multitude of useful properties,

nature
they at least attest the multitude of useful parts in and the skill guided by benevolence which ;

So has been put forth in the distribution of them. that long ere the philosophy of matter is perfected, or all its phenomena and its secondary laws have
been resolved into
principles^may we,
their original
in then*

and constituent obvious and immediate

296

ON THE EVIDENCE FOR A GOD

utility alone, detect as

many

separate evidences in

nature as there are separate facts in nature, for a

wise and benevolent Deity.
13.

And
many
and

the same will be found true of the

secondary laws in the mental world,

not as
distinct

which,

if

distinct beneficial principles in the

constitution of the mind, are the effect of as

many

beneficial arrangements in the objects

We or circumstances by which it is surrounded. have not to wait the completion of its still more subtle and difficult analysis, ere we come within
sight

of those varied

indications

of benevolent

design which are so abundantly to be met with, both in the constitution of the mind itself, and in the adaptation thereto of external nature.
there are, for example,

Some
that our

who contend

that the laws

;

of taste are not primitive but secondary

admiration of beauty in material objects

especially,

is

resolv-

able into other and original emotions, and,

more

by means of the associating

;

principle,

into our admiration of moral excellence.

Let the
its

justness of this doctrine be admitted

effect

and

only

on our peculiar argument

is,

that the bene-

volence of
suiting

God

in thus multiplying our enjoyments,

instead of being indicated by a distinct law for

the

human mind

to

the

objects

which

surround it, is indicated both by the distribution of these objects and by their investment with such
qualities as suit

them

to the previous constitution

of the

mind

that He hath pencilled them with the

He
hath imparted to the

which suggest

very colours, or moulded them into the very shapes either the graceful or the noble of
character; that

human

IN
violet its

THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION.

lily

297
in its

hue of modesty, and clothed the

robe of purest innocence, and given to the trees of the forest their respective attitudes of strength or
dehcacy, and

made

the whole face of nature

o^

bright reflection of those virtues which the

mind

and character of man had originally radiated. If be not by the implantation of a peculiar law in mind, it is at least by a peculiar disposition of tints and forms in external nature, that He hath spread so diversified a loveliness over the panorama of visible things ; and thrown so many walks of enchantment around us and turned the sights and
it
;

the sounds of rural scenery into the ministers of so

much and such

exquisite enjoyment;

and caused
first

the outer world of matter to image forth in such

profusion those various qualities, which at

of consciousness and thought.

had

pleased or powerfully affected us in the inner world

It is

by the modiis

fying operation of circumstances that a primary

;

and if the transmuted into a secondary law blessings which we enjoy under it cannot be ascribed to the insertion of a distinct principle in the nature
of man, they can at least be ascribed to a useful
disposition of circumstances in the theatre

around

him.
14.

In like manner there are some

who would

resolve
instinct,

our sense of property into an original

an ultimate fact in the mental constitution; and then quote it as the distinct instance of a wise and beneficial ordination connecting with it, as we have a right to do, all the advantages which accrue to society from the desire of property and from the Others reepect for it which exists among men.

298

ON THE EVIDENCE FOR A GOD

appropriating

again think they can reduce this

tendency in the mind to a simpler and more primitive law ; yet they do not thereby annihilate
the

evidence for design

for,

if

not a distinct

principle in

human

nature,

it is

at least a distinct

effect or development of that nature placed in circumstances which call forth this peculiar affection

to

the obvious good of whole communities, in

the stimulus given to industry, in the order and

security

attendant

on a

distribution

which

is

the object of general acquiescence.

The same
our

observation appUes to the relative affections, which

may

either

be regarded as peculiar

instincts of

nature, or as modifications of a simpler nature in

pecuUar circumstances. On either supposition we might stm recognise the wisdom of a God, if not in the estabhshment of certain additional laws, in having implanted so many distinct and original
feelings within the

human

breast

at least in the

estabhshment of certain dispositions, in having arranged the human species into so many distinct
famihes.
15. It
is felt
is

thus that philosophical discovery, which

by many
it

when

to enfeeble the argument for a God, reduces two or more subordinate to simpler

and anterior laws, does

as entire as before

in fact leave that

argument
diminish

^for if,

by

analysis,

it

the

number

of beneficial

properties whether in

matter or mind, it replaces the injury which it may be supposed to have done in this way to the cause of theism, by presenting us with as great an additional number of beneficial arrangements in nature. And further, it may not be out of place to observe.


IN THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION.
that there appear to be two distinct ways
artificer

299

by which of his wisdom manifest the might make an contrivances. He may either be conceived of, as forming a substance and endowing it with the fit
;

properties

or as finding a substance with certain

it

given properties, and arranging

tions for the

into

fit

disposi^

accomphshment of some desirable end. Both the former and the latter of these we ascribe
is

to the Divine Artificer

of whom we imagine, that

we can
ascribe

He

the Creator as well as the Disposer of all

It is only the latter that

things.
to the

human

artificer,

who
;

creates no substance,

and ordains no property

with
all its

properties ready
as the

but finds the substance made and put into

his hands,

fashions his implements

raw material out of which he and rears his structures Now it is a of various design and workmanship. commonly received, and has indeed been raised into a sort of universal maxim, that the highest property of wisdom is to achieve the most desirable end, or the greatest amount of good, by the fewest possible means, or by the simplest machinery. When this test is apphed to the laws of nature
then

we esteem

it,

as enhancing the manifestation

of intelligence, that one single law, as gravitation,

should, as from a central and

commanding eminence,

a whole host of most important phenomena; or that from one great and parent property, so vast a family of beneficial consequences
subordinate to
itself

should spring.

And when

the

same

test is

appHed

to the dispositions, whether of nature or art

then

it enhances the manifestation of wisdom, when some great end is brought about with a leee

300

ON THE EVIDENCE FOR A GOD

complex or cumbersome instrumentality, as often

takes place in the simplification of machines, when, by the device of some ingenious ligament or wheel,
the apparatus
tive,
is

made

equally, perhaps

more

effec-

whilst less unwieldy or less intricate than

before.
.

Yet there is one way in which, along with an exceeding complication in th^ mechanism,
there might be given the impression, of the very
skill

and capacity having been put forth on it. It is when, by means of a very operose and complex instrumentality, the triumph of art has been made all the more conspicuous, by a very marvellous result having been obtained out of very unpromising materials. It is
highest

the contrivance of

true, that, in this case too, a

still

higher impression

of skiU would be given,

striking
result

if

the same or a

more

were arrived at, even after the intricacy of the machine had been reduced, by some happy device, in virtue of which certain of its parts or circumvolutions had been superseded and thus, without injury to the final efi*ect, so much of the complication had been dispensed with. Still, however, the substance, whether of the machine or the manufacture, may be conceived so very intractable as to put an absolute limit on any further simplification, or as to create an absolute necessity for aU the manifold contrivance which had been expended on it. When this idea predominates in the mind then all the complexity which we may behold, does not reduce our admiration of the artist, but rather deepens the sense that we have, both of the reconditeness of his wisdom, and of the wondrous vastne&s and variety of his

IN
resources.
contrast,

THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION.

'

301

It is the extreme wideness of the between the sluggishness of matter, and the fineness of the results in physiology, which so enhances our veneration for the great Architect of

Nature, when we behold the exquisite organizations

of the animal

and vegetable kingdoms.*

The two
otherown way.
of per-

exhibitions are wholly distinct from each

yet each of them

may be
is

perfect in

its

The

first is

held forth to us,

when one law

vading generality

found to scatter a myriad of

its train.

beneficent consequences in
is

The second

held forth, when, by an indefinite complexity of

means, a countless variety of expedients with their multiform combinations, some one design, such as
the upholding of
life

in plants or animals

is

ac-

complished.

Creation presents us in marvellous

profusion with specimens of both these

at

once

confirming the doctrine, and illustrating the significancy of the expression in which Scripture hath

conveyed

it

to us,

when

it tells

of the manifold

wisdom
16.

God. But while, on a

of
this

principle

already often

recognised,
to the

multitude of necessary conditions

accomplishment of a given end, enhances the argument for a God, because each separate condition reduces the hypothesis of chance to

a more

violent improbability than before

must not be disguised that there is a certain transcendental mystery which it has the effect of aggravating, and which it leaves unresolved. We can understand the com;

yet

it

* Dr. Paley would state the problem thus. The laws of matter being given, so to organize it, as that it shall produce or sii^tiia thf phenomona, whether of vegetation or of life.

802

ON THE EVIDENCE

FOll A

GOD
processes to

plex machinery and the

circjiitous

which a human artist must resort, that he might overcome the else uncomplying obstinacy of inert matter, and bend it in subserviency to his special designs. But that the Divine Artist who first created the matter and ordained its laws, should find
the same complication necessary for the accom-

plishment of His puposes

that such an elaborate

workmanship,

for example, should

establish the functions of sight

be required to and hearing in the

animal economy,
difficulty

is

very like the lavish or ostensible

ingenuity of a Being employed in conquering the

which himself had raised. It is true, the one immediate purpose is served by it which we have just noticed that of presenting, as it were, to

file

eye of inquirers a more manifold inscription of the Divmity. But if, instead of being the object of
it

inference,

had pleased God

to

make

himself the

object of a direct manifestation, then for the

mere
this

purpose of becoming known* to his creatures,

reflex or circuitous

method of revelation would have been altogether uncalled for. That under the actual system of creation, and with its actual proofs, He has made His existence most decisively known to us, we most thankfully admit. But v/hen question is made between the actual and the conceivable systems of creation which God might
have created, we are forced to confess, that the
very circumstances which, in the existing order of things, have brightened and enhanced the evidence of His being, have also cast a deeper secrecy over

what may be termed the general poUcy of His government and ways. And this is but one of tho

IN

THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION.

303

which men of unbridled speculation and unobservant of that sound philosophy that keeps within the limits of human observation, will find it abundantly possible to conjure up on the It does look an impracfield of natural theism.

many

difficulties,

ticable

enigma that the

Omnipotent God, who

Gould have grafted all the capacities of thought and feeling on an elementary atom, should have deemed
fit

to incorporate the

human

soul in the midst of

so

and complicated a framework. For what a variegated structure is man's animal ecoWhat an apparatus of vessels and bones nomy. What a complex mechanism. and ligaments.
curious

What an

elaborate chemistry.

What

a multitude

of parts in the anatomy, and of processes in the What a physiology of this marvellous system.

medley,

contents.

we had almost said, what a package of What an unwearied play of secretions

and other changes incessant and
In short, what a laborious compUto uphold a hving principle, which,

and

circulations

innumerable.
cation
;

and

all

one might think, could by a simple fiat of omnipotence, have sprung forth at once from the great
source

and centre of the

spiritual

system,

and

mingled with the world of spirits

just as each

new

particle of light is sent forth

by the emanation

of a sunbeam, to play

and

glisten

among

fields of

radiance.
17.

But

to recall ourselves

among
actually

the possibilities of

from this digression what might have been,

it

to the realities of the mental system, such as

is.

Ere we bring the very general observations of this chapter to a close, we would

304

ON THE EVIDENCE FOR A

GOI>
realities of

briefly notice

an analogy between the

it

the mental and those of the corporeal system.

inquirers into the latter have found
benefit to their science to have
it

The

of substantial

mixed up with the Their reasoning on the hkely uses of a part in anatomy, has, in some instances, suggested or served as a guide to speculations, which have been at length verified by a discovery. We believe, in like manner, that reasoning on the nkely or obvious uses of a
prosecution of

a reference to

final causes.

principle in the constitution of the

human mind,
perhaps in

might

lead, if not to the discovery, at least to the

confirmation of important truth the science

itself,

not

but in certain of the cognate sciences which stand in no very distant relation to

it.

For example, we think

it

should rectify certain

errors which have been committed both in juris-

prudence and poHtical economy, if it can be demonstrated that some of the undoubted laws of human nature are traversed by them and so, that violence is thereby done to the obvious designs of the We do not hold it out of Author of Nature. place, though we notice one or two of these instances, by which it might be seen that the mental philosophy, when studied in connexion with the
;

palpable views of

Him by whom all its principles and processes were ordained, is fitted to enlighten the practice of legislation, and more especially to determine the wisdom of certain arrangements which have for their object the economic well-being of
society.

18.

AMiatever

may be thought

of the relative
first

strength of the argument for a God, as drawn

IN

THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION.

305

to

from the material and then from the mental world

^we

cannot but feel that

the latter, there

is, if

not a superior strength, at least a superior and

surpassing dignity.

The

superiority of

mind

to

matter has often been the theme of eloquence

For .what were all the wonders and all its glories, without a spectator mind that could intelligently view and that could tastefully admire them? Let every eye be irrevocably closed, and this were equivalent to the
moralists.

of the latter

entire
light
;

annihilation in nature

of the element of

and

in like

manner,

if

the light of

all

con-

sciousness were put out in the world of mind, the

world of matter, though as rich in beauty, and in the means of benevolence as before, were thereby

reduced to a virtual non-entity.

stances, the lighting

In these circumits

up again of even but one

being, or at least
signi-

mind would
touched

restore

its

ficancy, to that system of materialism, which, unitself,

had just been desolated of

it

all

those

beings in

whom

could kindle reflection, or to

sense of enjoyment.
It

whom it could minister the

were tantamount to the second creation of it or, in other words, one living intelligent spirit is of higher reckoning and mightier import than a dead universe.

CHAP.
On
the

II.

Supremacy of Conscience.

i. An abstract question in morals is distinct from a question respecting the constitution of man's

306

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

moral nature ; and the former ought no more to be confounded with the latter, than the truths of geometry with the faculties of the reasoning mind which comprehends them. The virtuousness of justice was a stable doctrine in ethical science, anteexistence of the species; and would though the species were destroyed just as much as the properties of a triangle are the enduring stabilities of mathematical science ; and that, though no matter had been created to exempUfy the positions or the figures of geometry. The objective nature of virtue is one thing. The subrior to the
so,

remain

jective nature of the

is felt

human mind, by which virtue and recognised, is another. It is not from the former, any more than from the eternal truths
we can demonstrate

of geometry, that

or attributes of

God

but from

the existence

the latter, as be-

longing to the facts of a creation emanating from

and therefore bearing upon it the stamp The nature and constitution of virtue form a distinct subject of inquiry from the nature and constitution of the human mind. Virwill,

His

of His character.

tue

is

not a creation of the Divine

of

will,

but has had

everlasting residence in the nature of the

The mind
indicates,

man

is

a creation

Godhead. and therefore

by its characteristics, the character of Him, to the fiat and the forthgoing of whose will it owes its existence. We must frequently, in the
course of this discussion, advert to the principles
of ethics; but
it

is

not on the system of ethical

is

doctrine that our argument properly

is

founded.

It

on the phenomena and the laws of actual human nature, which itself, one of the s:reat facts of crea-

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

tion,

307

may be regarded

like all its facts, as bearing

on

it

the impress of that

mind which gave

birth to

creation.
2.

But

further.

It is not only

not with the

full

system system of the philosophy of our nature that we On this last there is still a have properly to do.
it is

of ethical doctrine

not even with the

number

of unsettled questions

but our peculiar

is

argument does not need

determination of them.

to wait for the conclusive

For example, there

many a

controversy

among

philosophers respecting

the primary and secondary laws of the

stitution,

human

oon-

be an obviously beneficial law, it carries evidence for a God, in the mere existence and operation of it, independently of the rank which it holds, or of the relation in which it
if it

Now,

stands to the other principles, of our internal

me-

may, at one and the same time, be grounded on the law in question a clear theological inference ; and yet there may be
chanism.
It is thus that there

associated with
lation.

it

It is well that

an obscure philosophical specuwe separate these two;

and,

more

especially, that the decisive attestation

given by any part or phenomenon of our nature to the Divine goodness, shall not be involved in the
mist and metaphysical perplexity of other reasonings, the object of

which

is

altogether distinct
facts of the

and

separate from our own.

The

human

constitution, apart altogether

from the philosophy

of their causation,

demonstrate the wisdom and

:

benevolence of

Him who framed it and while it is our part to follow the light of tliis philosophy, as far as the light and the guidance of it are sure, we

308

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

when
the final cause
efficient
is

are not, in those cases,

obvious as day, though the proximate

should be hidden in deepest mystery

we

cause

are not,
light,

on

this account, to

confound darkness with

or Hght with darkness.

3.

By
shall

attending throughout to this observation,

we

be saved from a thousand irrelevancies and it is an observation peculiarly applicable, in announcing

as well as obscurities of argument
;

that great fact or

phenomenon

of mind, which, for

many

reasons, should hold a foremost place in our

deij^onstration.

We mean

the

felt

supremacy of

conscience

a phenomenon of much greater weight

and prominency than are commonly assigned to it Natural Theism a phenomenon without which we should, in the multitude of processes around us with the infinite diversity of
in the demonstrations of

their efiects, feel ourselves

enigmas
office of

but as in a world of but which, singly and of itself, serves the

a great light to overrule the cross or con-

tradictory intimations that are given

ones.

by the

lesser

Philosophers there are,

who have attempted

to resolve this fact into ult-erior or ultimate ones in

the mental constitution

the faculty a place

among

pounded
merely

principles.

and who have denied to its original and uncomSir James Macintosh tells us
;

of the generation of
states,

human conscience; and, not but endeavours to explain the phe-

of its felt supremacy within us. Dr. Smith also assigns a pedigree to our moral judgments; but, with all his peculiar notions respecting the origin of the awards of conscience, he never once disputes their authority; or, that, by

nomenon

Adam


ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.
309
is,

the general consent of mankind, this authority

in sentiment and opinion at least, conceded to them.* It is somewhat Hke an antiquarian con-

troversy respecting the

first formation and subsequent historical changes of some certain court of

government, the rightful authority of whose decisions

nised.

and acts

is,

at the

same

time, fully recog-

And

so,

philosophers have disputed regard-

ing the court of conscience

constructed, and

of what materials
line of

it is

by what

genealogy from

it has sprung. proper right admitted the have Yet most of these of sovereignty which belongs to it; its legitimate place as the master and the arbiter over aU the appetites and desires and practical forces of human nature. Or, if any have dared the singularity of denying this, they do so in opposition to the gene-

the anterior principles of our nature

ral sense

and general language of mankind, whose

very modes of speech compel them to affirm that the biddings of conscience are of paramount authority

its

pecuUar
all

office

being to
to do.

tell

what

all

men
now

should, or
4.

men ought

The

proposition, however, which

we

are

* Upon whatever," observes Dr. Adam Smith, " we Bupposa our moral faculties to be founded, whether upon a certain modification of reason, upon an original instinct called a moral sense, or upon some other principle of our nature, it cannot be doubted that they were given us for the direction of our conduct in this life. They carry along with them the #Dst evident badges of this authority, which denote that they were set up within us to be the supreme arbiters of all our actions, to superintend all our senses, passions and appetites, and to judge how far each of them was It is the peculiar office of either to be indulged or restrained. these faculties to judge, to bestow censure or applause upon all Theory of Moral Sentimentt, the other principles of our nature." Part iii. chap. v.

310
urging,

ON THE SUPftEMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

is

binding, but that

not that the obligations of virtue are man has a conscience which tells

him that they are so not that justice and truth and humanity are the dogmata of the abstract
moral system, but that they are the dictates of man's moral nature ^not that in themselves they are the constituent parts of moral rectitude, but that there is^a voice within every heart which thus pronounces on them. It is not with the constitution of morality, viewed objectively, as a system or

theory of doctrine, that we have properly to do but with the constitution of man's spirit, viewed as
the subject of certain

phenomena and laws

and,

a great psychological fact in human nature, namely, the homage rendered by it to the supremacy of conscience. In a word, it is not of a category, but of a creation that we are speaking. The one can tell us nothing of the Divine character, while the other might afford most
particularly, with
distinct and decisive indications of it. We could found no demonstration whatever of the Divine purposes, on a mere ethical, any more than we could, on a logical or mathematical category. But
it is

more

in

mind or

very different with an actual creation, whethei; in matter a mechanism of obvious

contrivance, and whose workings and tendencies, therefore, must be referred to the design, and so
to the disposition or cl^racter of that Being,
spirit
it.

whose

hath devised ana whose fingers have framed

5.

For

it is

Science that

we

not an abstract question in Moral are now discussing. It is a

question of Fact, respecting man*s moral nature--^

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

and as much
is

311

to

be decided by observation, as the

It

nature or properties of any substantive being.

a Fact which we learn or become acquainted with, just as we become acquainted with the constitution
of a watch

by the inspection of

its

mechanisn^

Conscience in
tion.

as the regulator
It
all

Man is

as

much a thing of observation

in a watch is a thing of observadepends for its truth, therefore, on an independent and abiding evidence of its own, under

the diversities of speculation on the nature of

By the supremacy of Conscience we affirm a truth which respects not the nature of Virtue but the nature of Man. It is, that in every human
Virtue.
heart, there
is

a faculty
as judge

not,

it

may

be, having

the actual power, but having the just and rightful

pretension to
of

sit

and master over the whole

human conduct. Other propensities may have too much sway but the moral propensity, if I may so term it, never can for to have the presiding

which properly man under anger may be too strongly prompted to deeds of retaliation or under sensuality be too strongly prompted to indulgence or under avarice be too closely addicted to the pursuit of wealth or even under friendship be too strongly inchned to partiaUty ^but he never can under conscience be too strongly inclined to be as he ought and to do as he ought. We may say of a watch that its main-spring is too powerful but we would never say that a Regulator is too powerful. We may complain of each of its
just that
to
it.

sway in all our concerns, is and legitimately belongs

other parts that

it

has too

much

influence over the

office it is to

restbut not that the part whose

312

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

fix the rate of going has too much And just as a watch cannot move too regularly, man cannot walk too conscientiously. The one cannot too much obey its regulator the

regulate and
influence.

other cannot too

words,

and
case,

much obey his conscience. In other Conscience is the rightful Sovereign in man
any other,
in the character of

if

passion, be the actual Sovereign

it is

In the former case,

'the

mind

is felt

a ruUng an usurper. to be in its

proper and well- conditioned state; in the latter

it is felt to be in a state of anarchy. Yet even in that anarchy. Conscience though despoiled

of

its

authority,

still lifts its

remonstrating claims.
continues to assert

Though
them.

deprived of

its rights, it

Long
it

after being stripped of its

still

dominion

over man,

has

its

dweUing-place in his

bosom; and even when most in practice disregarded, then it makes itself to be felt and heard. 6. The supremacy of Conscience does not seem to have been sufficiently adverted to by Dr. Thomas Brown. He treats the moral feeling rather as an
individual

emotion which takes its part in the enumeration along with others in his list, than as the great master-emotion that is not appeased but

by

its ascendancy over them aU. Now, instead of a single combatant in the play of many others^ and which will only obtain the victory, if physically

of greater power and force ; it should be viewed as separate and signalized from the rest by its own
felt

and inherent claim of superiority over them.

its
it is satisfied.

Each emotion hath

wherewith
of this emotion
is

own characteristic But the specific

all

object object

the regulation of

the active

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

powers of the soul
satisfied.

313
is

and

without

this,

it

not
its

The

distinction

made by

the sagacious

Butler between the power of a principle and

authority, enables us in the midst of all the actual

anomalies and disorders of our state, to form a precise estimate of the place which Conscience naturally

and

The man's constitution. is a desire consequent on our sense of right and wrong, may not
rightfully holds in

desire of acting virtuously, which

be of equal strength with the desire of some criminal indulgence and so, practically, the evil may pre-

ponderate over the good.

And

thus

it is

that the

system of the inner man, from the weakness of that which claims to be the ascendant principle of our nature maybe thrown into a state of turbulence So it may happen of a system of and disorder.

and just, from the real power Civil Government and the rightful authority being dissevered the one But still this does not hinder from the other. there being a rightful authority somewhere and

that

it

may

have existence, although

it

may

not

have force to carry the execution of

It is the very

its

dictates.

same of the Government within. There might be pride and passion and sensuahty and the love of ease, and a thousand more affections each having their own object and their own degree of strength and withal a Conscience that clauns the supremacy over all these but which often of inferior strength to them all may suffer them to lord it over that domain of which it rightTo it belongs fully is the master and proprietor. the mastery although the mastery is often wrongfully taken away from it. But still our urgent VOL. I, O

314

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

;

and unescapeable sense of the wrong our remorse and self-dissatisfaction when conscience is disobeyed; the happiness and harmony which are felt within, when the voice of authority which it emits is also a
voice of
soul,

power the well-conditioned state of th^ when the moral faculty overrules all, and subordinates all ^these are so many badges of tho
;

proper and native supremacy of Conscience

they evince that
whole.
7.
its

part and
is

office in

the

; and mechanism

of our moral system

to act as regulator of the

And

neither do

we urge

the proposition that

conscience has in every instance the actual direction of

human

affairs, for this

were

in the face of

aU experience.
obey them.

It is

not that every

man

obeys

her dictates, but that every

man

feels

he ought to
life

These

dictates are often in

:

ana

practice disregarded

so that conscience
Still

is

not the
the

sovereign de facto.
the hearts of
all vv^hich
;

there

is

a voice within
is

asserts that conscience

sovereign dejure
rightfully,
ally.

that to her belongs the

command
it

even though she do not possess

actu-

In a season of national anarchy, the actual

joined from each other.

power and the legitimate authority are often disThe lawful monarch may be dethroned, and so lose the might while he continues to possess ^nay, while he may be acknowledged throughout his kingdom to possess the right

The distinction still is made, even under this reign of violence, between the usurper and the lawful sovereign; and there is a similar distinction among the powers and principles of tba human constitution, when an insurrection take^
of sovereignty.

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

place of the inferior against the superior
science, after being dethroned

315

mastery and control,

standing.
still

is still felt

and con; from her place of to be the superior,

or rather supreme faculty of our nature notwith-

She may have fallen from her dominion, wear the badges of a fallen sovereign, having the acknowledged right of authority, though the power of enforcement has been wrested away from her. She may be outraged in all her prerogatives by the lawless appetites of our nature but not without the accompanying sense within of an outrage and a wrong having been inflicted, and a reclaiming voice from thence which causes itself to be heard and which remonstrates against it. The insurgent and inferior principles of our constitution may, in the uproar of their wild mutiny, lift a louder and more effective voice than the small still voice of conscience. They have the might but not the right. Conscience, on the other hand, is felt to have the right though not the might the legislative office being that which properly belongs to her, though the executive power should be wanting to enforce her enactments. It is not the reigning but the rightful authority of conscience that we, under
yet

the

name

of her supremacy, contend for

all

or,

rather

the fact that, by the consent of

ciples

our higher prin-

and feelings, this rightful authority is reputed be hers; and, by the general concurrence of mankind awarded to her.
to
8.

And

here

it

is

of capital importance to dis-

tinguish between an original and proper tendency,

illustrated

and a subsequent aberration. This has been well by the regulator of a watch, whose office

; ;
.

316

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

and primary design, and that obviously announced by the relation in which it stands to the other parts
of the machinery,
is

to control the velocity of its

movements. And we should still perceive this to have been its destination, even though, by accident or decay, it had lost the power of command which We should not misat the first belonged to it. understand the purpose of its maker, although, in virtue of some deterioration or derangement which the machinery had undergone, that purpose were now frustrated. And we could discern the purpose in the very make and constitution of the mechanism. We might even see it to be an irregular watch and yet this needs not prevent us from seeing, that, at its original fabrication, it was made for the purpose of moving regularly. The mere existence and position of the regulator might suffice to indicate this although it had become powerless, either from the wearing of the parts, or from some extrinsic disturbance to which the instrument had been exposed. The regulator, in this instance, may be said to have the right, though not the power of

command, over the movements

vestiges of the right;
so that,

of the time-piece

yet the loss of the power has not obhterated the

by the inspection
learn the injury

of the machinery alone,

we both

which has been done to it, and the condition in which it originally came from the hand of its maker

a condition of actual as well as rightful supremacy,

on the part of the regulator, over all its movements. And a similar discovery may be made, by examination of the various parts and principles which make up the moral system of man for we see various
:

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

parts

317

and principles there. We see Ambition, having power for its object, and without the attainment of which it is not satisfied; and Avarice, having wealth for its object, without the attainment
of which
it is

not satisfied; and Benevolence, having

for its object the

good of

others, without the attain;

ment

of which

it is

not satisfied
its

and the love of

Reputation, having for

object their applause,

without w hich it is not satisfied ; and lastly, to proceed no further in the enumeration. Conscience, which surveys and superintends the whole man,

whose

distinct

and appropriate object

it is

to

have

the entire control both of his inward desires and

it is

outward doings, and without the attainment of this thwarted from its proper aim, and remains

unsatisfied.

Each appetite, or affection of our nature,

distinct object;

has

its

own

but

this last is the object

of Conscience, which
tion.

may be termed the moral affecit

The

place which
it

occupies, or rather which

it is felt

that

should occupy, and which naturally

belongs to

is that of a governor, claiming the and taking to itself the direction over all the other powers and passions of humanity. If this superiority be denied to it, there is a felt violence done to the whole economy of man. The sentiment is, that the thing is not as it should be and even after conscience is forced, in virtue of some subsequent derangement, from this station of
it,

superiority,

rightful ascendancy,

we can

still

distinguish

between

what
is

is

the primitive design or tendency, and what

the posterior aberration. can perceive, in the case of a deranged or distempered watch, that the mechanism is out of order ; but even then, on

We

318

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

its workmanship, and more from the place and bearing of its regula-* tor, can we pronounce that it was made for moving And in like manner, on the bare inregularly. spection of our mental economy alone, and more particularly from the place which conscience has

the bare examination of

especially

there,

refuses to obey

can we, even in the ease of the man who its dictates, affirm that he was made

for walking conscientiously.

9. The distinction which we now labour to estabhsh between conscience, and the other principles

of our nature, does not respect the actual force or

prevalence-which may, or
to them.

may not,

severally belong

It respects the universal judgment which,

by the very

constitution of our nature,

all

is

passed on

the question, which of

these should have the

prevalence, whenever there happens to be a contest

between them.
every

All which

we

affirm

is,

that

if

conscience prevail over the other principles, then

man
to

is led,

by the very make and mechanism

is

of his internal economy, to feel that this

as

it

ought
is

be

or, if these
is

others prevail over conit

science, that this

not as

ought to be.

One,

it

generally

felt,

may be

too ambitious, or too

much

set

on wealth and fame, or too resentful of

injury,

or even too facile in his benevolence,

to the length of being injudicious

when

carried
;

and hurtful

but

no one

is

ever

felt, if

he have sound and enlightened

When views of morality, to be too conscientious. we affirm this of conscience, we but concur in the
homage rendered
rightful, if

to

it

by

all

men, as being the

not the actual superior,

faculties of

among

all

the

feelings

and

our nature.

It is a truth.

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

319

perhaps, too simple for being reasoned ; but this is because, hke many of the most important and undoubted certainties of human behef, it is a truth
of instant recognition.

When
in

stating the supre-

macy

of

conscience,
it,

the sense

that

we have
feel
;

explained

we but

state w^hat all

men

and
is

our only argument, in proof of the assertion,

our only argument can be, an appeal to the experience of all men. 10. Bishop Butler has often been spoken of as the first discoverer of this great principle in our nature though, perhaps, no man can properly be
;

said to discover

what

all
is

men
the

are conscious

of.

But

certain

it is,

that he

first

who hath made

the natural supremacy of conscience the subject of a full and reflex cognizance and by this achieve-

ment alone hath become the author of one of the most important contributions ever made to moral It forms the argument of his three first science. sermons, in a volume which may safely be pronounced, the most precious repository of sound
ethical principles

authority

of

The extant in any language. Stewart, Dugald conscience, says

"although beautifully described by many of the ancient moralists, was not sufficiently attended to by modern writers, as a fundamental principle in the It science of ethics, till the time of Dr. Butler."
belongs to the very essence of the principle, that

we

clearly distinguish,

between what we

find to

be

the actual force of conscience, and what we feel to These two may^exist in be its rightful authority.

a state of separation from each other just as in a

Civil

Government, the reigning power may,

in sea-

320

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

sons of anarchy, be dissevered from that supreme

court or magistrate to

whom

it

rightfully belongs.
is

The mechanism
of
its

of a political fabric

not ade-

quately or fully described by the mere enumeration

parts.

There must

also

enter into the

which the parts bear to each other; and more especially, the paramount relation of rightful ascendancy and direction, which that part, in which the functions of Government
description, the relation

are vested, bears to the whole.

Neither

is

the

mechanism

of man's personal constitution fully or

adequately described, by merely telling us in succession the several parts of which

it is

composed

as

the passions, and the appetites, and the affections,

and the moral sense, and the intellectual capacities, which make up this complex and variously gifted
creature.

The

particulars of his mental system

stated, each in their individuaUty

must not only be

the rest

but the bearing or connexion which each has with

else it is not described as a system at all. In making out this description, we should not only not overlook the individual faculty of conscience,

but we must not overlook

the
other feelings
is

its

relative place

among
nature.

and
is

faculties

of our

That place

the place of

command.

Wliat con-

science lays claim to

the mastery or regulation

over the whole man.

rests or terminates in its

Each desire of our nature own appropriate object,

its

as the love of fame in applause, or hunger in food,

or revenge in the infliction of pain upon

object,

or affection for another in the happiness and com-

pany of the beloved individual. But the object of the moral sense is to arbitrate and direct among all

ON THE SUPriEMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

these propensities.
It

321

claims the station and tho

Its peculiar
is

prerogative of a mistress over them.

office
is

that of superintendence,

and there

certain feeling of violence or disorder,

when

the

mandates which
is

it

issues in

tliis

capacity, are not

carried into effect.

Ewery
is

affection in our nature

is

appeased by the object that

suited to

it.

The

object of conscience

the subordination of the

whole to its dictates. Without this it remains unappeased, and as if bereft of its rights. It is not a single faculty, taking it^ own separate and unconnected place among the other feelings and faculties which belong to us. Its proper place is that of a guide or a governor. It is the ruling power in our nature and its proper, its legitimate business, is to prescribe that man shall be as he ought, and do as he ought. But instead of expatiating any further at present in language of our own, let us here admit a few brief sentences from Butler himself, that great and invaluable expounder both of the human constitution, and of moral " That principle by which we survey, science. and either approve or disapprove our own heart, temper, and actions, is not only to be considered as what in its turn is to have some influence, which may be said of every passion, of the basest appetites but likewise as being superior ; as from its
;
:

very nature manifestly claiming superiority over

others
:

all

insomuch that you cannot form a notion of this faculty conscience, without taking in judgment direction and superintendency. This is a constituent part of the idea, that
is

of the faculty itself:

and

to preside

and govern, rrom the very ecoBomy

o2

322

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

Had it and constitution of man, belongs to it. strength, as it has right ; had it power, as it has manifest authority ; it would absolutely govern the " This faculty was placed within us to be world." our proper governor; to direct and regulate all under principles, passions, and motives of action. Thus sacred is its This is its right and office. And how often soever men violate and authority. rebelHously refuse to submit to it, for supposed interest which they cannot otherwise obtain, or for the sake of passion which they cannot otherwise gratify; this makes no alteration as to the natural " As the idea of a right and office of conscience."
civil

constitution implies in

it

united strength, vari-

ous subordinations under one direction that of the supreme authority, the different strength of each
particular

the idea; whereas

coming into you leave out the subordination, the union, and the one direction, you lose it so reason, several appetites, passions and affections,
of the society not
if

member

prevailing in different degrees of strength,

is

not
is

that idea or notion of

human
;

nature, which

meant when virtue is said to consist in following it, and vice in deviating from it but that nature
consists in these several principles considered as

having a natural respect to each other, in the several passions being naturally subordinate to the one
superior
principle

of

reflection

or

conscience.
is
:

Every
these
adjust,

bias, instinct,

propension within,

a real

part of our nature, but not the whole

the

Add
it

to
to

superior faculty, whose office

is

manage and

preside over them, and take in

this its natural superic^ty,

and you complete the

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

idea of

323

human

nature.
is

And
in

as in civil

government

upon, sfll violated by power and strength prevailing over authority; so

the constitution

broken

the

<|Ewistitution

of

man

is

broken

in

upon and
supreme by ancient

violated

by the lower
all.

faculties or principles within

is

prevailing over that, which

in its nature
it is

over them
to
is

Thus when

said

writers, that tortures

human

nature as injustice
less strong
:

and death are not so contrary ; by this, to be sure,

not meant, that the aversion to the former in

is

mankind

aversioi^o the latter

and prevalent than their But that the former is only

contrary to our nature considered in a partial view,

and which takes in only the lowest part of it, that which we have in common with the brutes; whereas
the latter
is

contrary to our nature, considered in

as

a higher sense,

a system and constitution,

contrary to the whole economy of man."

conclusion on the whole
is

The

that

" man cannot be

considered as a creature
at random,

left

and

live at large

natural power, as passion,

to carry
;

by his Maker to act up to the extent of his human willfulness, happen

are in

him which is the condition brute creatures But that from his make, constitution, or

is, in the strictest and most proper a law to himself. He hath the rule of right within WTiat is wanting is only that he

nature, he
sense,

honestly attend to
1 1
.

it."

Now

it is

in these

phenomena

of Conscience

that Nature oifers to us, far her strongest argument,

for the

moral character of God.

unrighteous Being himself, would

Had He been an He have given

man, so

to this the obviously superior faculty in

; ;

324

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

difitinct and authoritative a voice on the side of rignteousnessW Would He have so constructed the creatures of our species, as to have planted in

every breast a reclaiming witness against

hiinteelf ?

Would He have

thus inscribed on the tablet of

every heart the sentence of his

own condemnation

and is not this just as unhkely, as that He should have inscribed it in written characters on the Would He so have forehead of each mdividual ? fashioned the workmanship of His own hands or, if a God of cruelty, injustice, and falsehood, would He have placed in the station of master a0l ji^idge that faculty which, felt to be the highest in our nature, would prompt a generous and high-minded revolt of all our sentiments against the Being who From a God possessed of such formed us ? characteristics, we should surely have expected a differently-moulded humanity ; or, in other words, from the actual constitution of man, from the testimonies on the side of all righteousness, given by
;

the vicegerent within the heart, do we infer the righteousness of the Sovereign who placed it there.

He would never have estabhshed a conscience in man, and invested it with the authority of a monitor, and given to it those legislative and judicial functions which it obviously possesses and then so framed it, that all its decisions should be on the side of that virtue which He himself disowned, and condemnatory of that vice which
an e\idence for its ground, amid all the disorders and aberrations to which humanity is liable ; and can no more, indeed, be
himself exemphfied.

He

This

is

the righteousness of God, which keeps

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

deafened or overborne by these, than
authority of
is

325

the rightful

by the occasional outbreakings of iniquity and violence which take This public opinion may, in place in society.
pubhc
opinion,

when might prevails over be deforced from the practical ascendancy which it ought to have ; but the very sentiment that it so ought, is our reason for believing the world to have been originally formed, in order that virtue might have the rule over it. In like manner, when, in the bosom of every individual man, we can discern a conscience, placed there
those seasons of misrule
right,

with the obvious design of being a guide and a

commander, it were difficult not to believe, that, whatever the partial outrages may be which the cause of virtue has to sustain, it has the public

mind of the universe in its favour and that therefore He, who is the Maker and the Ruler of such
;

a universe, is a God of righteousness. Amid all subsequent deteriorations and errors, the original design, both of a deranged watch and of a deranged human nature, is alike manifest first, of the maker of the watch, that its motions should harmonize with time second, of the maker of man, that his movements should harmonize with We can, in most cases, truth and righteousness. discern between an aberration and an original law between a direct or primitive tendency and the effect of a disturbing force, by which that tendency is thwarted and overborne. And so of the constitution of man. It may be now a loosened and disproportioned thing, yet we can trace the original Structure even as from the fragments of a ruin,
the
; ;

326

ON THE

SUPREJL.\CY Of CONSCIENCE.

we can
its

obtain the perfect model of a building from

It is

capital to its base.

thus that, however

fallen,

prostrate conscience

may have

we can

still

discern

its

place of native and original pre-eminence,

as being at once the legislator and tlie judge in the moral system, though the executive forces of the system have made insurrection against it, and thrown the whole into anarchy. By studying the
constitution, or
thing,

what Butler

calls the

make

we may

divine the purpose of the

of any Maker.

No one can mistake the design of the artificer in putting a regulator into a watch. It was to make
it

move

regularly.

And as

httle should

we mistake

the design of the Creator in putting a Conscience

into man's

bosom.

scientiously.

It was to make hiii^ walk conEven although from some derange-

ment in me machinery, the regulator had lost its power of control yet from its plan of control the

may stiU be abundantly manner, though from the unhingement of man's moral economy, Conscience may have fallen from the actual sway, it still bespeaks itself to be^ a fallen sovereign, and that
original

purpose of

it

manifest.

And

in like

the place of sovereignty

rightfully belongs to
it.

is

that which natively

is

and

When what

obviously

the regulating pov*er has quitted its hold, whether of the material or the spiritual mechanism, we
distinctly recognise of each that it is not in its natural state but in a state of disorder, arising in the one case from the wear of the materials or from

some shake

that the machinery has received, arising

in the other case either

from some incidental

dis-

turbance, or from some inherent frailtv and defect

'^

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE,

There
yet,
is

327

that attaches to the creature.

a depth
in the

of mystery in every thing connected with the exis-

tence and origin of evil in creation

fiercest

even

uproar of our stormy passions, Conscience,

softest whispers, gives to the

though in her
her hght
still

of rectitude the voice of an undying testimony

supremacy and ;

shining in a dark place, her unquelled

^accents stiU heard in the loudest outcry of Nature's

rebellious appetites,

form the strongest argument

within reach of the

of
all partial

human

faculties, that, in spite

or temporary derangements,

Supreme
It is

Power and Supreme Goodness

true that rebellious
of man's

are at one.

man

hath, with daring footstep,

;

trampled on the lessons of Conscience

in spite

but why,

perversity,
to
lift

is

conscience,

on

the

other hand, able

a voice so piercing

and so powerful, by which to remonstrate against the wrong, and to reclaim the honours that are due How comes it that, in the mutiny and to her ? uproar of the inferior faculties, that faculty in man, which wears the stamp and impress of the highest, should remain on the side of truth and holiness ? Would humanity have thus been moulded by a false and evil spirit or would he have committed such
;

impolicy against himself, as to insert in each

of our species a principle which would"
feel the greatest

member make him

complacency in his own rectitude, most high-minded revolt of indignation and dislike against the Being who gave him birth ? It is not so much that Conscience takes a part among the other faculties of our nature; but that Conscience takes among them the part of a governor, and that man, if he do not obey her

when he

feels the

328

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

Still,

suggestions,

in despite of himself,

acknowledges
the

her rights.
of the

It is

a mighty argument for the virtue

all

Governor above, that

It

laws and

injunctions of the governor below are

of virtue.

on the

side

seems as if He had left this representative, or remaining witness, for Himself, in a world that had cast off its aUegiance ; and that, from the voice of the judge within the breast, we may learn the will and the character of Him who hath invested with such authority His dictates. It 6 this which speaks as much more demonstratively
\0T the presidency of a righteous
affairs,

God

in

human

than for that of impure or unrighteous

demons, as did the rod of Aaron, when it swallowed the rods of the enchanters and magicians in Egypt. In the wildest anarchy of man's insurgent appetites

and

sins,

there

is still

a reclaiming voice

a voice
it

which, even

when

in practice

disregarded,

is

impossible not to

own

and

to which, at the very

moment that we refuse our obedience, we find that we cannot refuse the homage of what we ourselves
do
feel

and acknowledge

to

be the

best, the highest

principles of our hature.

12. The question then is, would any other than a God of righteousness have made creatures of such a moral constitution at the first and, however inexplicable its subsequent derangement may be, would He have left a conscience in every breast which gave such powerful testimony to the worth and the permanent importance of morality ?

Shaded in
of

all its original

is,

lineaments as the character

there not

man now

and dethroned although virtue be

is
stiJl

from the actual sovereignty,

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

329

amongst us a general and abiding sense of her

Would even this imperfect but universal homage continue to be given, were it a wicked Being who presided over the great family of Nature, or breathed hfe and spirit and sentiment Would He have into the human framework?
rightful sovereignty ?

placed so deeply within us that faculty by which as if with moral compulsion we are constrained to

hold in supreme reverence, the goodness which in all its characteristics is the reverse and the counterpart of his

own nature

Would He have endowed

the creatures which himself hath made with an admiration of all that is most opposite to himself

and how,

be unrighteous hath He put into every bosom such an indelible sense of the obligaRighttion and precedency of righteousness?
if

He

eousness does not bear actual and unexcepted rule ^but there is a conscience in every in the world

man which

proclaims that this rule

it

ought to

have, and that though wrested from

it, it is

by the

force of principles which are felt to be in their

own

Had nature inferior to Conscience. Conscience in man, each propensity

there been no

may

at times

have had its own temporary sway as if gods of unequal strength shared the dominion over them. But there being a Conscience, invested with a rightful if not with an actual ascendancy which still keeps a remaining hold of our nature, and within
the recesses of a Moral System, in evident disorder
still

causes

its

voice to be heard

this

phenomenon,

of

itself,

gives a blow to impure Polytheism, or at

least degrades each

an

inferior deity.

member thereof to the rank of The question is whether He be

330

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

evil

a good or an

destinies of our species.

God v/ho
outlaws

has

full

who presides over the Were he an unrighteous sway over us, why is Conscience,
spirit

that faculty which disowns unrighteousness

it,

and

permitted by him to assume the rank of an arbiter and not only to speak but to speak as

one having

a,uthority ?

If the actual Artificer of

man's moral mechanism be a wicked or a malignant spirit, it seems inexplicable that he should have placed such a judge and arbiter within us one

who bore

constant testimony against the wrongness

his

and the worthlessness of

heart
is

own

character.

Thus

to have written reproach against himself in every

just as inexplicable as

written his
is

own

disgrace

if he had legibly upon every forehead. It

true on the other hand, that

God who

if he be a righteous governs our world, Humanity is in a

state of revolt against

him

the result however not

what

of the principles but of the passions, or of

Humanity
of

itself

its faculties still He is borne witness to by that within the breast which claims to be the superior,

judges and feels to be the inferior

the supreme faculty, and which obviously announces

itself to

be

if

not de facto, at least de jure the

difficult

ruling power.
13.

Ho

vv

ever
it

from the very simpHcity

of the subject

may

be, to state or to reason the

argument for a God, which is founded on the supremacy of Conscience, still historically and experimentally, it will be found, that it is of more force than all other arguments put together, for originating and upholding the natural theism which
there
is

in the world.

The

theology of Conscience

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

is

331

not only of wider diffusion, but of far niore

practical influence than the theology of academic

demonstration.
impressive,

The
that,

ratiocination

by which

this

theology is established, is not the less firm or the

less

instead

of

a lengthened

process, there is JDut one step between the premises and the conclusion or, that the felt presence of a judge within the breast, powerfully and immedi-

ately suggests the notion of a

Supreme Judge and

Sovereign,
tion, the

who placed

it

there.

Upon
at

this

ques-

mind does not stop short

mere abstrac-

tion; but, passing at once from the abstract to

the concrete, from the law of the heart it makes It is the very the rapid inference of a lawgiver.
rapidity of this inference which
like intuition;

makes

it

appear
to

and which has given birth

the

mystic theology of innate ideas. of Conscience disclaims such mysticism,

it is,

Yet the theology

built, as

on a foundation of sure and sound reasoning;

for the

strength of an argumentation in nowise depends upon the length of it. The sense of a governing principle within, begets in all men the sentiment of a living Governor without and above them, and it does so with all the speed of an

instantaneous feehng ; yet it is not an impression, and as much so it is an inference notwithstanding

as any inference from that which

is

seen, to that

which

is

unseen.

There

is,

in the first instance,

cognizance taken of a fact if not by the outward eye, yet as good, by the eye of consciousness which has been termed the faculty of internal observation.

And

the consequent belief of a

God, instead
is

of being an instinctive sense of the Divinity,

the


332

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

fruit of
is

an inference grounded on that fact. There made, from the sense of a Monitor within to the faith of a Hving Sovereign
instant transition

above ; and this argument, described by all, but with such speed as almost to warrant the expression of its being felt by all, may be regarded, notwithstanding the force and fertility of other
considerations, as the great prop of natural religion

events it is of the utmost value in Theology that there should be so much of Truth and of supremely important Truth placed so near us as to be laid hold of immediately by the mind without the intervention of reasoning and without any sensible exertion on the part of the discursive faculty, or of that faculty by which it is, that we arrive at some distant conclusion by a train of inferences. Such for example are those truths which are seen, not merely in the hght of the

among men. 14. At all

external senses but in the light of consciousness,

and which instantly become manifest on the attention of

the

mind being turned towards

them.

There

needs in these instances no lengthened

argumentation to carry the belief for the thing in question becomes palpable by our own vivid and
intimate consciousness of our

own

nature.

The

supremacy of Conscience is one of those truths not come at by a series of stepping-stones but -seen at once, in the light of what may be termed an instant manifestation. Now certain it is, that this Fact or Phenomenon in our nature, depones strongly both for a God and for the supreme But it drones to righteousness of His Nature.

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

these immediately
inferential step
;

333

or, at

most, there

is

but one

which leads from the consciousness of what we feel to be in ourselves, to the imj)ression of what we apprehend to be in Him from whom we There derived our constitution and our being. may here be one transition from the premises to the conclusion ^but done with such rapidity by the And mind that it is not conscious of an argument. this it is, we believe, which has given a certain

innate or a prior character to

some

of the notions

and feelings of Natural Theism. They may be soundly bottomed notwithstanding so that though mingled with the fears or the fancies of superstition, we can discern the substantial workings of Truth and Reason on the subject of a God, even in For the felt countries of grossest Heathenism. supremacy of Conscience established even there, a certain natural regimen of Morality and gave the impression of a Jurisprudence wherewith the

idea of an avenger and judge stood irresistibly The Law written on the Heart associated.

a Lawgiver however indistinct their Even the personification of him may have been. suggested

barbarous Theology of Greece and Rome, ifnpure and Hcentious as it was, did not wholly obliterate what may be called the Theology of Natural
Conscience.
15.

And we

mistake,

if

we

think

wise, even in the ages of darkest

it was ever otherand most licentious

Paganism. This Theology of Conscience has often been greatly obscured, but never, in any country or at any period in the history of the world, has it beeu
wholly obliterated.

We

behold the vestiges of

it

334

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

Theology of the desert
and, perhaps, ; than in the complex super-

in the simple

more

distinctly there,

stitions

of an artificial
this,

and

civilized

neathenism.
the invoca-

In confirmation of
tions to tho

we might quote

Great

Spirit

from the wilds of North

America.
globe,

But, indeed, in every quarter of the

where missionaries have held converse with savages, even with the rudest of Nature's children when speaking on the topics of sin and judgment, they did not speak to them in vocables unknown. And as this sense of a universal Law and a Supreme Lawgiver never waned into total extinction among the tribes of ferocious and untamed wanderers so neither was it altogether stifled by the refined and intricate polytheism of more enhghtened nations. The whole of classic authorship teems with allusions to a Supreme Governor and Judge iVnd when the 'guilty Emperors of Rome were tempest-driven by remorse and fear, it was not that they trembled
.

before a spectre of their

terror mixed, which

own

imagination.

When

it often

did,

with the rage and

cruelty of Nero,

it

was the theology of conscience

which haunted him. It was not the suggestion of a capricious fancy which gave him the disturbance but a voice issuing from the deep recesses of a moral nature, as stable and uniform throughout the species as is the material structure of humanity and in the Hneaments of which we may read that there is a moral regimen among men, and therefore a moral Governor who hath instituted, and who presides over it. Therefore, it was that these imperial despots, the worst and haughtiest of recorded monarchs, stood aghast at the spectacle

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

of their

335

own

worthlessness.

It is true, there is

wretchedness which naturally and essentially belongs to a state of great moral unhingement
this
;

and
will

may

account for their discomforts, but

it

not account for their fears.

They may, because

coming vengeance ?

of this, have felt the torments of a present misery.

But whence

their fears

of a

They would
imagination

not have trembled at Nature's law,

apart from the thought of Nature's Lawgiver.

of

The

an unsanctioned

law would no

more have given disquietude, than the imagination of a vacant throne. But the law, to their guilty
apprehensions, bespoke a judge.

The

throne of

heaven,
living

to

their

monarch.

was filled by a Righteousness, it was felt, would

troubled
eye,

not have been so enthroned in the moral system

of

man, had it not been previously enthroned in the system of the imiverse ; nor would it have held such place and pre-eminence in the judgment of all had not the Father of Spirits been and ultimate avenger. This is not a
spirits,
its

friend

local or

geographical notion.

It is a universal feeling

to

be found wherever

men

are found, because interIt is

woven with the

one country.
family of man.
of savage
artificial
life
;

constitution of humanity.

not, therefore, the peculiarity of

It

one creed, or of circulates at large throughout the can trace

it
it

We
nor
is

in the

Theology

wholly overborne by the

.trous

Theology of a more complex and idolaPaganism. Neither crime nor civilization can extinguish it ; and whether in the " conscientia scelerum" of the fierce and frenzied Catiline, or in
the tranquil contemplative musings of Socrates and

336

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

we find the impression
of at once a righteous

Cicero,

and a reigning Sovereign. 16. y^^ this felt Supremacy of Conscience, we cannot oBurselves of the impression that whatever the actual power or prevalence of vice may be in
the world, it is but the tumult and insurrection of lower against higher elements and that moral

rectitude

its empire in the pure region of Sentiment and Thought, sits aloft as it were in empyreal dignity and from an eminence whence no Power in Earth or Heaven
still
;

undislodged from

can dethrone her, commands the homage of all that is best and worthiest in Nature. When there is

war betwixt Opinion and Force, the latter may have the physical ascendancy, yet the former is ever counted the nobler antagonist and thus it is,

that although vice should have enhsted under

its

standard of rebelhon

all

the families of mankind,

there remains the moral greatness of Virtue, as erect in the consciousness of its strength as if it

had the public mind of the Universe upon its side. It is difficult to resist the feeling, that amid all the mystery of present appearances, the highest power
one with the highest principle. And it still more our idea of a government that conscience not only gives forth her mandates with the tone and authority of a Superior ; but, as if on purpose to enforce their observance, thus follows
is

at

confirms

punishments.
like

them up with an obvious discipline of rewards and It is enough but to mention, on the
felt

one hand, that

complacency which
eUxir,

is distilled,

some precious

recollection of virtuous deeds

upon the heart by the and virtuous sacrifices j

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

337

and, on the other hand, those inflictions of remorse,

with, as

which are attendant upon wickedness, and whereif by the whip of a secret tormentor, the
is

heart of every conscious sinner

agonized.

We

discern in these the natural sanctions of morality,

and the moral character of

them.

Him who hath

ordained

We cannot

otherwise explain the peace and

triumphant satisfaction which spring from the consciousness of well doing nor can we otherwise

explain the degradation as well as bitter distress,

which a sense of demerit brings along with it. Our only adequate interpretation of these phenomena is,
that they are the present remunerations or the

present chastisements of a
eousness, and

God who

loveth right-

who

hateth iniquity.

Nor do we view
and vice, but

them

as the conclusive results of virtue

rather as the tokens and the precursors either of a

brighter reward or of a heavier vengeance, that are

coming.
train

It is thus that the delight of self-approba-

tion, instead of
;

standing alone, brings hope in its and remorse, instead of standmg alone, brings
its train.

terror in

The
serve

expectations of the future

are blended with these joys and sufferings of the

present

and

all

still

impression, of which traces are

every quarter of the earth

retributive economy,

stamp an be found in that we live under a

to to

more

over

it

and that the God who reigns takes a moral and judicial cognizance of the

creatures
17.

whom He

hath formed.
are the specific injunctions of

What then

conscience ? for on this question essentially depends

every argument that

we can
p

derive from this

power

or property of our nature, for the moral character

VOL.

I.

338
of

ON THE SLPUEMACV OF CON'SCIEXCE.

If, on the one hand, the lessons given God. by a faculty, which so manifestly claims to he the pre-eminent and ruling faculty of our nature, be those of deceit and licentiousness and cruelty

forth

then, from the character of such a law, should

infer the character of the lav/giver
;

we

and so feel the conclusion to be inevitable, that we are under the government of a malignant and unrighteous God, at once the patron of vice and the persecutor of If on the other hand, temvirtue in the world. perance, and chastity, and kindness, and integrity, and truth, be the mandates which generally, if not invariably proceed from her then, on the same

principles of judgment, should

who

is

the author of conscience, and

we reckon that He who gave it

it

the place of supremacy and honour, which

so

obviously possesess in the moral system of man,

was himself the friend and the exemplar

perfect moral rectitude.
lessons of

of all

those virtues which enter into the composition of

In the laws and the

human

conscience, would

character of the Godhead, just as

instructions given

we study the we should study

the views and dispositions of a monarch, in the

by him to the viceroy of one of on the one hand, virtue be prescribed by the authority of conscience, and followed up by her approval, in which very approval there is felt an inward satisfaction and serenity of spirit, that of itself forms a most delicious reward and if, on the other hand, the perpetrations of wickedness are followed up by the voice of her
his provinces.
If,

rebuke, in which, identical with remorse, there

is

a sting of agony and

discom.fort,

amounting

to the

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

severest penalty
to
infer

339

of

then, are we as naturally disposed Hira who ordained such a mental

constitution that

He

is

the righteous

Governor of

men,
of us,

as, if

seated on a visible throne in the midst

He had made the audible proclamation of His law, and by His own immediate hand, had distributed of His gifts to the obedient, and inflicted chastisements on the rebellious. The law of conscience may be regarded* as comprising all those virtues which the hand of the Deity hath inscribed on the tablet of the huip^n heart, or on the tablet of natural jurisprudence ; and an argument for these being the very virtues which characterize and adorn Himself, is that they must have been transcribed from the prior tablet of His
own
nature.
18.

We

are

sensible

that

there

is

much

to

obscure this inference in the actual circumstances

of the world.

More

especially

it

has been alleged,

on the

side of scepticism, that there

diversity of moral

is an exceeding judgments among men; that,

out of the multifarious decisions of the

human

conscience, no consistent code of virtue can be

framed ; and that, therefore, no consistent character can be ascribed to Him, who planted this faculty
in the

bosom

of our species, and bade

it

speak so
it

uncertainly and so variously.*

But

to this

may

* On the imiformity of our moral judgments, we would refer to the 74th and 75th of Dr. Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy " If we bear in mind," says Sir James of the Human Mind. Macintosh, " that the question relates to the coincidence of all men in considering the same qualities as virtues, and not to the preference of one class of virtues by some, and of a different

class

by others, the exceptions from the agreement of mankind,

in their systems of practical morality, will be reduced to absolute

340

ON THE suprp:macy of conscience.

in the first place, that the

be answered,
diversity
is

apparent

partly reducible into the blinding, or,

at least, the distorting effect of passion

and interest,

which sometimes are powerful enough to obscure our perception, even of mathematical and historical truths, as well as of moral distinctions and without
;

therefore affecting the stability of either.

for example,

It is thus,

that mercantile cupidity has

bhnded

many a reckless adventurer to the enormous injustice

of the slave-trade that passion and interest together have transmutpl revenge into a virtue; and that the robbery, which, if prosecuted only for the sake of individual gain, would have appeared to all
;

under an aspect of most revolting selfishness, puts on the guise of patriotism, when a whole nation deliberates on the schemes, or is led by a career of daring and lofty heroism, to the spoliations of In all such cases, it is of capital imconquest. portance to distinguish between the real character
of any criminal
action,

when looked
;

to

calmly,
is

comprehensively, and fully

and what that

in

the action which the perpetrator singles out and fastens upon as his plea, when he is either de-

fending

it

to others, or reconciling

it

to his

own

he knows the deed to be incapable of vindication, and yet rushes on the performance of it, there i^ but delinquency of conduct incurred, not a diversity of moral judgment nor does Conscience, in this case, at aU betray any
conscience.

In as

far as

insignificance;
affecting the

and we sliall learn to view them as no more harmony of the moral faculties, than the resemblance of the limbs and features is affected by monstrous conformations, or by the unfortunate effects of accident and disease in a very few
individuals."

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

caprice or uncertainty in her decisions.
It is

341
but
in

the conduct, and not the conscience, which fault; and to determine whether the latter

is is

in

aught chargeable with fluctuation, not to man's performance, but to his plea.

we must look

Two

men may
action
;

differ

as to

the moral character of an

but if each is resting the support of his own view on a different principle from the other, there may still be a perfect uniformity of moral
sentiment between them.
of the

They own

the authority

same laws

they only disagree in the appli-

In the first place, the most vehement denouncer of a guilty commerce is at one with the most strenuous of its advocates, on the duty which each man owes to his family and again, neither of them would venture to maintain the
cation of them.
;

lawfulness of the trade, because of the miseries

inflicted

by it on those wretched sufferers who The defender of this ruthless were its victims. and rapacious system disowns not, in sentiment at least, however much he may disown in pracnay, tice, the obligations of justice and humanity the of attempts he in all the palliations which un~ as these of speaks he question, enormity in

doubted virtues, and renders the homage of his moral acknowledgments to them all. In the sophistry of his vindication, the principles of the ethical

system are
justice

left

untouched and
tells of

entire.

He

meddles

not with the virtuousness either of humanity or

;

but he

the humanity of slavery,

It is true, that

and

the justice of slavery.

ties of his trade

he heeds not

the representations which are given of the atroci-

^that

he does not attend because

342
he

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

;

and in this there is practibut resolves itself into perversity of conduct, and not into perversity of The very dread and dislike he has for sentiment.
wills not to attend

cal unfairness.

Still it

the informations of the subject, are sjTuptoms of a

feeling that his conscience cannot be trusted with

the question

or, in

other words, prove him to be

is

possessed of a conscience which

other men.

just like that of

The

partialities of interest

and feeling

may

give rise to an infinite diversity of moral judg-

ments in our estimate of actions ; while there may be the most perfect uniformity and stabihty of judgment in our estimate of principles and, on all the great generalities of the ethical code. Conscience may speak the same language, and own one and the same moral directory all the world over. 19. When consciences then pronounce differently of the same action, it is for the most part, or rather,
:

it is

almost always, because understandings view

It is either
it

it

differently.
ists

because the controversial-

are regarding
;

with unequal degrees of know-

ledge

or,

each, through the

medium
all

of his

own

partialities.

The

consciences of
decision,

forth with the

same moral

would come were all equally

in question

enlightened in the circumstances, or in the essential

relations

and consequences of the deed

is

and, what

just as essential to this uniformity of

all

judgment, were
It matters not,

viewing
it

it

fairly as well as fully.

whether

be ignorantly or

wilfully,

that each

is

looking to this deed, but in the one

is

aspect, or in the one relation that

his

favourable to

own

peculiar sentiment.

In either case, the

qualities of the

diversity of

judgment on the moral

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

same
action,
is

3-l."i

just as

little to

be wondered at as a

similar diversity on the material qualities of the same object should any of the spectators labour

under an involuntary defect of

vision, or voluntarily

persist either in shutting or in avertnig his eyes.

It is thus that a quarrel has well been termed a misunderstanding, in which each of the combatants may consider, and often honestly consider, himself

to

be in the right and that, on reading the hostile memorials of two parties in a litigation, we can perceive no diiierence in their moral prhicipies, but
:

only in their historical statements

public manifestoes of nations

and

that, in the

when

entering upon

war,

we can

discover no trace of a contrariety of

conflict in their ethical systems,

differently

but only in their put or differently coloured representaall proving, that, with the utmost tions of fact

judgment among men respecting the moral quahties of the same thing, there may be a
diversity of

perfect identity of structure in their moral organs

notwithstanding; and that Conscience, true to. her office, needs but to be rightly informed, that she

may speak
same
20. It

the same language, and give forth the

lessons in all the countries of the earth.

is

this

which explains the moral peculi-

It is not that justice, humanity, and gratitude are not the canonized

arities of different nations.

virtues of every region

or that falsehood, cruelty,

and fraud would

not, in their abstract

and unasso-

ciated nakedness, be viewed as the objects of moral It is, that, in one and the antipathy and rebuke.

same material
lights of which,

action,

when looked
in reality or

to in all the

whether

by the power

; ;

344

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

it is

of imagination,
site

susceptible, various, nay, oppo-

moral characteristics
another

may be blended and

;

that

while one people look to the good only without the

evil,

may

look to the evU. only without the

good.

And

thus the identical acts which in one

nation are the subjects of a most reverent and

religious observance,

may,

in another

be regarded
in

with a shuddering sense of abomination and horror.

And this, not because of any difference may be termed the moral categories of
people, nor because,
if

the

what two

moral principles

in their

unmixed generality were offered to the contemplation of either, either would call evil good or good evil. When theft was publicly honoured and rewarded in Sparta, it was not because theft in itself was reckoned a good thing; but because patriotism, and dexterity, and those services by
which the interests of patriotism might be supported, were reckoned to be good things. When the natives of Hindostan assemble with delight around
the agonies of a

human
it

sacrifice, it is

not because

they hold

it

good

to rejoice in a spectacle of pain

but because they hold

good

to rejoice in a spec-

tacle of heroic devotion to the

memory

of the dead.

When parents are exposed or children are destroyed,

it is

not because

it is

deemed

to

be right that there

its

should be the

infliction of
it

misery for
to

own

sake

but because

is

deemed

be right that the

wretchedness of old age should be curtailed, or that the world should be saved from the miseries of

an over-crowded species. In a word, in the very worst of these anomalies, some form of good may be detected, which has led to their establishment

ON THE SUPKEMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

and
still

345

some universal and undoubted

principle of

morality, however perverted or misapplied, can be

alleged in vindication of them.

;

people

may be

deluded by their ignorance or misguided by their superstition ; or, not only hurried into wrong deeds, but even fostered into v/rong sentiments, under the
hifluences of that cupidity or revenge, which are

so perpetually operating in the warfare of savage

or demisavage nations.
there

Yet, in spite of

all

the

topical moralities to which these have given birth,

is

notwithstanding.

an unquestioned and universal morality And in every case, where the

moral sense is unfettered by these associations; and the judgment is uncramped, either by the partialities of interest or by the inveteracy of national customs which habit and antiquity have rendered sacred CoTiscience is found to speak the

same language
world,
is

nor, to the remotest ends of the

there a country or an island, where the

same uniform and consistent voice is not heard Let the mists of ignorance and passion from her. and artificial education be only cleared away ; and the moral attributes of goodness and righteousness and truth be seen undistorted, and in their own
proper guise
science
;

and there

is

not a heart or a con-

teeming population, And it is which could refuse to do them homage. family human of the precisely because the Father
throughout earth's
has given such hearts and consciences to all his children, that we infer these to be the very sanctities of the

Godhead, the very

is

attributes of his

own

primeval nature.
21.

There

a countless diversity of tastes in p 2

346

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

the world, because of the mfinitely various circum-

Yet is there a and correct standard of taste notwithstanding, to which all minds, that have the benefit of culture and enlargement, are gradually assimilating and
stances and associations of men.
stable

approximating.
true, that, in spite

It holds far
of-

more emphatically

the diversity of moral judg-

ments, which are vastly less wide and numerous

than the former, there
rallying
is

a fixed standard of morals,

consciences, to the greater

around

itself all

principles of which, a full

is

and unanimous homage

;

rendered from every quarter of the globe and even to the lesser principles and modifications of

is a growing and gathering consent, with every onward step in the progress of light and civilization. In proportion as the understandings

which, there

of

men become more

enlightened, do their conother.

sciences

become more accordant with each

Even now there is not a single people on the face of the earth, among whom barbarity and licentiousness
and fraud are
deified as virtues

where

it

does not

require the utmost strength, whether of superstition

and contracted Apart from these local and, we venture to hope, these temporary exceptions, the same moralities are recognised and honoured; and, however prevalent in practice, sentiment at least, the same vices are disowned and execrated all the world over. In proportion as superstition is dissipated, and prejudice is gradually weakened by the larger intercourse of nations, these moral peculiarities do evidently wear
or of patriotism in
its

most

selfish

form, to uphold the delusion.

away

till

at length,

if

we may judge from the

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

obvious tendency of things, conscience
full
will, in

347
the

manhood

of our species, assert the universality

and the unchangeableness of her decisions. There no speech nor language where her voice is not heard ; her line is gone out through all the earth ; and her words to the ends of the world. 22. On the whole, then, conscience, whether it be an original or a derived faculty, yet as founded
is

on human nature,
of
it,

if

may be regarded

not forming a constituent part as a faithful witness for

It is

God

the author of that nature, and as rendering

to his character a consistent testimony.

not

necessary, for the establishment of our particular

lesson, that

we should turn
controversial

that which
scientific

is

that which is clear into by our entering into the

question respecting the physical origin of

conscience, or tracing the imagined pedigree of its descent from simpler or anterior principles in the
constitution

For, as has been well man. remarked by Sir James Macintosh " If Conscience be inherent, that circumstance is, according
of

to the

common mode

of thinking, a sufficient proof

of

in the constitution

But if provision be made, and circumstances of aU men for uniformity, producing it by processes similar to those which produce other acquired sentiments, may not our reverence be augmented by admu-ation of that supreme wisdom, which, in such mental
its title

to veneration.

contrivances, yet

more highly than in the lower world of matter, accomplish mighty purposes by It is not therefore the instruments so simple ?"
physical origin, but the fact, of the uniformity of

Conscience, wherewith

is

concerned the theological

348

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

inference that

we attempt

to

draw from

it.

This

ascendant faculty of our nature, which has been so

often termed the divinity within us, notwithstanding

the occasional sophistry of the passions,

is

on the

whole, representative of the Divinity above us

and the righteousness and goodness and truth the

lessons of which
it

gives forth every where,

may

well be regarded, both as the laws which enter into

constitution, and as the attributes which enter into the moral character of God. 23. We admit a considerable diversity of moral

the juridical

observation in the various countries of the earth,

but without admitting any correspondent diversity When human of moral sentiment between them. sacrifices are enforced and applauded in one nation this is not because of their cruelty, but

notwithstanding of
the
universal

their

cruelty.

Even

there,

humanity would be acknowledged, that it were wrong to inflict a wanton and uncalled for agony on any of our fellows ^but there is a local superstition which counteracts the universal principle, and overbears When in the repubhc of Sparta, theft, instead it. of being execrated as a crime, was dignified into an art and an accompHshment, and on that footing admitted into the system of their youthful education ^it was not because of its infringement on the rights of property, but notwithstanding of that infringement, and only because a local patriotism made head against the universal principle, and Apart from such disturbing prevailed ovei^ it. will be found that the sentiments forces as these, it towards one and the same standard gravitate of men
principle

of

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

all

349

and that, when once the obscurations of superstition and selfishness are dissipated, there will be found the same moral light in every mind, a recognition of the same moral law, as the
over the globe
;

immutable and eternal code of righteousness for all We have already quoted countries and all ages. the noble testimony of a heathen, who tells us with equal eloquence and truth, that, even amid all the perversities of a vitiated and endlessly
diversified creed.

Conscience sat mistress over the whole earth, and asserted the supremacy of her

own

unalterable obligations.*

24.

Such then

is

our

first

argument

for the

implies an existence,

moral character of God, and might be resolved into an even the moral of God being argument for the

which, as a character

character of the law of conscience that conscience which He hath inserted among the faculties of our nature; and armed with the felt authority of a
;

master;

and

furnished
its

with sanctions
;

for

the

enforcement of
or the habits,
righteousness.

dictates

and so

fi-amed, that,

apart h'om local perversities of the understanding all its decisions are on the side of

The

inference

is

neither a distant

nor an obscure one, from the character of such a law to the character of its lawgiver. Neither is it

an inference, destroyed by the insurrection which has taken place on the part of our lower faculties,

by the actual prevalence of vice in the world. For this has only enabled Conscience to come forth with another and additional demonstration of
or
Boolvl.
c. I.

33.

350
its

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

sovereignty

just as the punishment of crime in

estabhshed there.
felt

society bears evidence to the justice of the govern-

ment which

is

In general, the

by the virtuous, does, not so impressively bespeak the real purpose and character of this the ruling faculty in man, as do the remorse, and the terror, and the bitter dissatis faction, wherewith the hearts of the wicked are exercised. It is true, that, by every act of iniquity, outrage is done to the law of conscience but there is a felt reaction within which tells that the outrage is resented and then it is, that Conscience makes most emphatic assertion of its high prerogative, when, instead of coming forth as the benign and
; ;

inward complacency

generous dispenser of
it

its

rewards to the obedient,

comes forth like an offended monarch in the character of an avenger. Were we endowed with

prophetic vision, so as to behold,

judge, and

among

the yet

undisclosed secrets of futurity, the spectacle of a

a judgment-seat,

and an assembled

world, and the retributions of pleasure and pain to

were fetching from God. But the instant pleasure and the instant pain wherewith conscience follows up the doings of man, brings this very argument within the limits of actual observation. Only, instead of being mani;

the good and to the evil

this

afar

an argument

for the righteousness of

fested
is

by the

light of a preternatural revelation,

it

suggested to us by one of the most familiar

feelings of oyir

certainties of experience, for in these

and

own moral

nature, do

phenomena we behold

not only a present judgment, but a present execution of the sentence.

ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.

25.

351
sort

Some perhaps may

imcagine the

same

of transition in this reasoning from the abstract to the concrete, that there is in the a priori argument.
abettors of this argument talk of our notion of of space as an inch, being but itself a part any part of our entire and original notion of immensity

The

and

time as an hour,

manner, that our notion of any part of is but part of the entire and original notion of eternity that is in every mind. They regard our ideas of infinite space and infinite
in like

time

as

belonging

to

the

simplest elements

of

Thought ; and that therefore the certainty of the things which they represent, carries in it all the
light

and authority of a

first principle.

And
or
it

then

upon the maxim

that every attribute

quality
resides,

implies a substantive

Being

in

which

they step from the abstract to the concrete, from

the infinite extent and the infinite duration to an
infinitely

We
we

confess,

extended and an infinitely enduring God. though it should be called a similar

confidence
in

transition from the abstract to the concrete, that

feel vastly greater

passing by

inference from a

Law to

a Lawgiver.

The

supre-

macy of Conscience is human nature*-seen in the light of consciousness by each man, of his own individual specimen and
;

a fact in the constitution of

verified in the light of observation, as extending to

every other specimen within the compass of his And however quick the inference knowledge. may be from the supremacy of Conscience within the breast, to the Supreme Power who estabhshed
it

this is strictly

there being himself a righteous Sovereign ^yet an argument a jmsteriori both for

352

PLrEASURE 01 VIRTUOUS, AND

It is the

the Being and the Character of God.

strongest,
for the

we apprehend, which Nature

;

furnishes

Moral Perfections of the Deity and even minds, or certainly with most minds, the most effective argument for His Existence though ushered into the creed of Nature not by a train of inferences, but by the hght of an almost unmediate
with
all

perception.

It is thus that in

our

first

addresses

to any

human Being on

the subject of religion,

we

presume a God without entering on the proof of a God. He has already the lesson within himself and it is a lesson which tells him more, or at least speaks to him with greater force than the
safely

may

whole of external Nature. Instead of bidding him its collocations, he will be more powerfully impressed and occupied with the idea of a God, if he but hearken to the voice of his own Conlook to
science. It gave direct suggestion of a ruling and a righteous God, even in the days of corrupted Paganism And still with the unlettered of our present day and apart fi*om the light of Christi-

demonology of inferior paramount impression of a one moral Governor amons: men.

spirits,

anity, along with the popular

there

is

the

CHAPTER
On
the inherent

III.

Pleasure of the Virtuous, ana Misery of the Vicious Affections,

We

are often told

by

moralists, that there

;

native and essential happiness in moral worth

is a and

MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

353

A like native and essential wretchedness in moral depravity insomuch that the one may be regarded
as
its

own reward, and

the

other

as

its

own

We do not always recollect that this punishment. one hand, and this misery on the the happiness on
them made up, severally of and that thus, by mental analysis, we might strengthen our argument both When for the being and the character of God.
other,

are each of

distinct ingredients;

we

discover, that, into this alleged happiness of the

good there enter more enjoyments than one, we thereby obtain two or more testimonies of the Divine regard for virtue and the proof is enhanced in the
;

same pecuhar way, that the evidence of design is, in any other d^^artment of creation, when we perceive the concurrence of so many separate and independent elements, which meet together for the production of some complex and beneficial result.
have already spoken of one such ingreThere is a felt satisfaction in the thought dient. of having done what we know to be right ; and, in
2.

We

counterpart to this complacency of self-approbation,

there
is a felt discomfort, amounting often to bitter and remorseful agony, in the thought of having This done what conscience tells us to be wrong. implies a sense of the rectitude of what is virtuous.

But without
viewing
it

thinking of

its

rectitude at

all,

without

in reference either to the

law of conscience
to jurispru-

or to the law of

God, with no regard

dence
tion

in the

matter

there

is,

in the virtuous affec-

We another and a distinct enjoyment. -and benevolence ; ought to cherish and to exeicise there is a pleasure in the consciousness of doing
itself,

p.')4

PLEASURE or VIRTUOUS, AND

:

what we ought but beside this moral sentiment, and beside the pecuUar pleasure appended to benevolence as moral, there is a sensation in the merely physical affection of benevolence; and that sensation,
itself, is in the highest degree pleasurable. The primary or instant gratification which there is in the direct and immediate feeling of benevolence is

of

one thing

the secondary or reflex gratification which there is in the consciousness of benevolence as moral is another thing. The two are distinct of
:

themselves

but the contingent union of them, in

the case of every virtuous affection, gives a multiple

force to the conclusion, that

God

is

the lover, and,

because

so,

the patron or the rewarder of virtue.

He

hath so constituted our nature, that, in the very

oil

flow and exercise of the good affections, there shall

be the
the

of gladness.

There

is

instant delight in

There is There is consummated delight in the happy smiling and prosperous result of it. Kindness, and honesty, and truth, are, of themselves, and irrespective of
first

conception of benevolence.
its

sustained delight in

continued exercise.

their rightness,

svveet unto the taste of the inner

man.

MaUce, envy,

falsehood,

injustice,

irre-

spective of their wrongness, have of themselves, the

l)itterness of gall

and wormwood. The Deity hatli annexed a high mental enjoyment, not to the consciousness only of good affections, but to the very sense and feeling of good affections. However closely these may follow on each other nay, however implicated or blended together they may be at the same moment into one compour d state of feeling they are not the less distinc t on that

MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFFX'TKiNS.

accqunt, of themselves.
able sensations,
in the case

2bo

They form two pleasuremstead of one; and then* apposition,

deecT or virtuous

of every virtuous

desire, exhibits, to us that very concurrence in the

and fulness

world of mind, which obtains with such frequency affording, in in the world of matter every new part that is added, not a simply repeated

only, but a vastly multiplied evidence for design,

throughout

all

its

combinations.

pleasure in the very sensation of virtue

Is

There is a and there

;

a pleasure attendant on the sense of its rectitude. These two phenomena are independent' of each

Let there be a certain number of chances against the first in a random economy of things, and also a certain number of chances against the In the actual economy of things, where second. there is the conjunction of both phenomena it is the product of these two numbers which represents the amount of evidence alForded by them, for a moral government in the world, and a moral Governor
other.

over them.
3.

In the

calm satisfactions of virtue,

not be so palpable,
felt

this

distinction

may

as

in

the

pungent and more vividly are attendant on the wrong

disquietudes which

afTections of our nature.

The
long,

perpetual corrosion of that heart, for example,

frets in
is

which

plainly distinct

unhappy peevishness all the day from the bitterness of that

remorse which is felt, in the recollection of its harsh and injurious outbreakings on the innocent
sufferers
\\

ithin its reach.

It is saying

much

for

the moral character of God, that he has placed a conscience within us, which admmisters painful

35G
rebuke on every indulgence of a wrong affection. But it is saying still more for such being the character of our Maker so to have framed our mental constitution, that, in the very working of

these bad affections there should be the painfulness

and discordancy. Such is the mechanism of our nature, that it is thwarted and put out of sorts, by rage and envy, and hatred and this, irrespective of the adverse moral judgments which conscience passes upon

of a felt discomfort

make

or

them. Of themselves, they are unsavoury and no sooner do they enter the heart, than they shed upon it an immediate distillation of bitterness.
;

Just as the plaicd smile of benevolence bespeaks the felt comfort of benevolence; so, in the frown

and tempest of an angry countenance, do we read man who is vexed and agitated by his own malignant affections eating inwardly as they do on the vitals of his enjoyment.
the unhappiness of that

It

is,

therefore, that he
or,

is

often styled, and truly, a

self-tormentor;

his

own worst enemy.

is

The

a separate thing from the delight of the conscience which approves it.
itself,

delight of virtue in

And the pain of moral evil in itself, is a separate thing from the pain inflicted by conscience in the act of condemning it. They offer to our notice two
both of the present reward attendant upon virtue, and of the present penalty attendant upon vice; and so, enhance the evidence
that
is

distinct ingredients,

before our eyes, for the moral character of

that administration,

been placed by

its

Author.

is rightly alleged, in

under which the world has The appetite of hunger evidence of the care, wherewith

MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

357

the Deity hath provided for the well-being of our

natural constitution

and the pleasurable taste of

urgent voice of conscience

food

is

rightly alleged as an additional proof of the

same.

And

so, if the

within, calhng us to virtue, be alleged in evidence

of the care, wherewith the Deity hath provided for

the well-being of our moral constitution

the plea-

surable taste of virtue in

of
its

itself,

with the bitterness

opposite,

evidence thereof.

may well be alleged as additional They ahke afford the present

and the sensible tokens of a righteous administration, and so of a righteous God. 4. Our present argument is grounded, neither on the rectitude of virtue, nor on its utility in the grosser and more palpable sense of that term ^but on the immediate sweetness of it. It is the office

of conscience to

tell

us of

its

rectitude.
utility.

It is

by
the

experience

that

w^e

learn

its

But

sweetness of it

the dulce of
into

virtue, as distinguished
It

from

its utile, is

a thing of instant sensation.

may be decomposed

two ingredients, with one of which conscience has to do even the pleasure we have, when any deed or any affection of ours receives from her a favourable verdict. But it has another ingredient which forms the proper and the distinct argument that we are now urging even the pleasure we have in the mere relish of the affection itself. If it be a proof of benevolence in God, that our external organs of taste should have been so framed, as to have a liking for wholesome food ; it is no less the proof both of a benevolent and a righteous God, so to have framed our mental economy, as that right and wholesome morality

358

PLEASURE OF VIIITUOLS, AND

should be palatable to the taste of the inner man Virtue is not only seen to be right it is felt to be

delicious.

There

is

happiness in the very wish to

make

others happy.

There
its

is

a heart's ease, or a
first

heart's

enjoyment, even in the

purposes of

kindness, as well as in

subsequent performances.

There There
there

is

a certain rejoicing sense of clearness in a triumphant elevation of spirit in magna-

the consistency, the exactitude of justice and truth.

is

nimity and honour.

is

In perfect harmony with

this,

a placid feeling of serenity and

blissful

contentment in gentleness and humility.

is

There
of self-

a noble satisfaction in those victories, which, at

the bidding of principle, or by the

power
is

command,

may have been

achieved over the

propensities of animal nature.

There

an

elate

independence of soul, in the consciousness of having nothing to hide, and nothing to be ashamed of. In
a word, by the constitution of our nature, each
virtue has
its
is

appropriate charm; and virtue, on

the whole,

a fund of varied, as well as of perpetual

who hath imbibed its spirit, and under the guidance of its principles. He feels all to be health and harmony within and without, he seems as if to breathe in an atmosphere of beauteous transparency ^proving how much the
enjoyment, to him
is
;

nature of

man and
;

the nature of virtue are in unison

It is

with each other.

use of food

hunger which urges

to the

but

it

strikingly demonstrates the care

and benevolence of God, so to have framed the organ of taste, as that there shall be a superadded enjoyment in the use of it. It is conscience which
urges to the practice of virtue
;

but

it

serves to

MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

359

enhance the proof of a moral purpose, and therefore of a moral character in God, so to have framed our mental economy, that, in addition to
the
of
felt
itself,

obligation of

its

rightness, virtue should

be so regaling to the taste of the inner

man.
5.

factions of virtue,

In counterpart to these sweets and satisis the essential and inherent

is

bitterness of all that

morally

evil.

We

repeat,

that, with this particular

argument, we do not mix up the agonies of remorse. It is the wretchedness of vice in itself, not the wretchedness which we
suifer

because of

its

recollected and felt wrongness

of.

that

we now speak

It is

not the painfulness of

because of our anger, upon the compunction insist but the painfulness moment this we at which the same remark apphes and itself ; emotion of the
felt
;

to all the

True,
desire,

it

is

malignant desires of the human heart. inseparable from the very nature of a
there

that

must be some enjoyment or

its

other, at the time of

gratification

but, in the

case of these evil afi'ections, it is not unmixed The most ordinary observer of his enjoyment.

own
full

feelings,

however incapable of

analysis;,

must

be sensible, even at the moment

of wreaking, in

indulgence of his resentment, on the man who has provoked or injured him, that all is not perfect and entire enjoyment within but that, in this, and indeed in every ither malignant feeling, there
;

is

a sore burden of disquietude an unhappiness tumultuating in the heart, and visibly pictured

on the countenance.

The

ferocious tyrant

who

has only to issue forth his mandate, and strike

360
dead

Pleasure of virtuous, and

at pleasure the victim of his wrath, with any circumstance too of barbaric caprice and cruelty, which his fancy in the very waywardness of passion

unrestrained and power unbounded might suggest

may be said to have experienced a thousand gratifications, in the solaced rage and revenge, which, though ever breaking
to

him

he
life

through

forth

every day of his

on some new subject, he can appease again life by some new execution. But
it if

we mistake

we

think otherwise than that, in

spite of these distinct

gratifications
if

and very numerous nay

it is

daily

he so choose,

not a
It

life

of fierce
indis-

internal

agony notwithstanding.

seems

pensable to the nature of every desire, and to form part indeed of its very idea, that there should be a
distinctly felt pleasure, or at least,

a removal at
its

the time of a distinctly felt pain, in the act of

fulfilment

yet,

whatever recreation or

relief

may

have thus been rendered, without doing away the

misery, often in the whole

amount

of

it

the intense

misery, inflicted upon

of his nature.

man by

the evil propensities

Who can doubt for example the unhappiness of the habitual drunkard ? and that, although the ravenous appetite, by which he is driven along a stormy career, meets every day, almost every hour of the day, with the gratification

that

is

suited to

it.

The same may be

liar.

equally

affirmed of the voluptuary, or of the depredator,

or of the extortioner, or of the

Each may

succeed in the attainment of his specific object and we cannot possibly disjoin from the conception
of success, the conception of

some

sort of pleasure

^yet in

perfect consistency,

we

affirm,

with a .sad

*IISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

36i

and heavy burthen of unpleasantness or unhappiHe is little conversant with ness on the whole. our nature who does not know of many a passion belonging to it, that it may be the instrument of many pleasurable, nay delicious or exquisite sensations, and yet be a wretched passion still; the domineering tyrant of a bondsman, who at once knows himself to be degraded, and feels himself to A sense of guilt is One main ingrebe unhappy. yet physically, and notwithdient of this misery

standing the pleasure or the relief inseparable at

the

moment from every

indulgence of the passions,

there are other sensations of bitterness, which of

themselves, and apart from remorse, would cause

the suiFering to preponderate.
6. There is an important discrimination made by Bishop Butler in his sermons and, by the help of which, this phenomenon, of apparent contradic;

tion or

mystery

in our nature,

may be

satisfactorily

explained.

between the final object of any of our desires, and the pleasure attendant on or rather inseparable from its gratification. The object is not the pleasure, though the pleasure be an unfailing and essential accompaniment on the attainment of the object. This
distinguishes
is

He

well illustrated by the appetite of hunger, of

it

which
there

were more proper

it

to say

that

it

seeks
the

for food, than that

is

seeks for the pleasure which

in

eating the food.

is

The

food

is

object; the pleasure

the accompaniment.
distinct

We

and secondary but of that other pleasure which strictly and properly
do not here speak of the
is

pleasure which there

in the taste of food,

VOL.

I.

362
attaches

FLEASUKE OF VIRTUOUS, AND

to

the

gratification

of the

appetite of

hunger.

This is the pleasure, or rehef, which accompanies the act of eating while the ultimate
;

object, the object in

which the appetite rests and

itself.

terminates,
all

is

the food

The same

is

true of

our special affections.

its

Each has a proper and

peculiar object of

own, and the mere pleasure

attendant on the prosecution or the indulgence of

the affection
is

not, as has
fully

by Butler and Brown, is not

tinct

been clearly established by Dr. Thomas that object. The two are as disreasserted

from each other, as a thing loved is distinct pleasure of loving it. Every special inclination has its special and counterpart object. The object of the inclination is one thing the
jFrom the
;

pleasure of gratifying the inclination

and, in most instances,
that
it it

is

another;
to say,

were more proper

is

is

for the sake of the object than for the

gratified.
felt to

sake of the pleasure that the inclination

be a subtle, is truly a substantial one ; and pregnant, both with important principle and important apph^ cation. The discovery and clear statement of it by Butler may well be regarded as the highest service rendered by any philosopher to moral science ; and that, from the light which it casts, both on the processes of the human constitution and on the theory of virtue. As one example of the latter service, the principle in question, so plainly and convincingly unfolded by this great Christian philosopher in his sermon on the love of our neighbour, Strikes, and with most conclusive effect, at the rrot of the selfish system of morals ; a system which
that

The distinction

we now urge though

MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

363

professes that man's sole object, in the practice of

all

the various moraUties,

is

his

own

individual

advantage.*

Now,

in

most cases of a
is

special,
it

and

more

particularly of a virtuous affection,

can be

demonstrated, that the object

himself and distinct from himself.

sion for one instance out of the

a something out of Take compas-

many.

The

object

of this affection

is

the relief of another's misery,

and, in the fulfilment of this, does the affection

meet with

its full

solace

and

gratification

that

is,

in a something altogether external from himself.

It is true, that there is

an appropriate pleasure in
is

the indulgence of this affection, even as there the indulgence of every other
too,
;

in

and

in proportion,

to the strength of the affection, will

be the
doubly

greatness of the pleasure.

The man who

his
fellow,

is

more compassionate than

will

have

doubly a greater enjoyment in the relief of misery yet that, most assuredly, not because he of the two
is

the more intently set on his

is

own

gratification,

but because he of the two

:g^retchedness.

the

more

intently set

on

an outward accomplishment, the

relief of another's

The

truth

is,

that, just

because
intent

more compassionate than

is

his fellow, the

more

he than the other on the object of this affection, and the less intent is he than the other on himself His thoughts and the subject of this affection.
feelings are

therefore
*

more drawn away to the sufferer, and He is more drawn aiwayjrom himself.
it

that the utilitarians of our day make so little whom nevertheless some of them profess to The truth is, that the distinction which he has estabidolize ? lished between the object of an affection and its accompanying
is

How

account of Butler,

pleasure, strikes at the foundation of their system ?

364

PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND

the most occupied with the object of this affection ;

and, on that very account, the least occupied with

the pleasure of

its

indulgence.

And it is

precisely

the objective quality of these regards, which stamps

upon compassion the character

affection.

of a disinterested

He

surely

is

the most' compassionate

whose thoughts and feelings are most drawn away to the sufferer, and most drawn away from self; or, in other words, most taken up with the direct consideration of him who is the object of this affection, and least taken up with the reflex consideration of the pleasure that he himself has in the Yet this prevents not the pleaindulgence of it. sure from being actually felt ; and felt, too, in very
proportion to the intensity of the compassion
in other words,
;

or,

more

felt

the less

it

has been

thought of at the time, or the le^s it has been pursued for its own sake. It seems unavoidable in every affection, that, the more a thing is loved,
the greater must be the pleasure of indulging the
love of
it yet it is equally unavoidable, that the greater in that case will be our aim towards the object of the affection, and the less will be our aim
:

towards the pleasure which accompanies

cation.

its gratifi-

And

thus, to one

who

reflects

profoundly

and carefully on these things, it is no paradox that he who has had doubly greater enjoyment than another in- the exercise of compassion, is doubly the more disinterested of the two that he has had the most pleasure in this affection who has been
;

the least careful to please himself with the indul-

gence of it; that he whose virtuous desires, as being the strongest, have in their gratification

MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

365

ministered to self the greatest satisfaction, has been

the least actuated of
all

his fellows

by the wishes,

and stood
7.

at the greatest distance

from the aims of

selfishness.*

And

moreover, there

cal sense, in

is a just and philosophiwhich many of our special aiFections,

besides the virtuous, are alike disinterested with

even though they have been commonly ranked among the selfish aflfections of our nature. The proper object of self-love is the good of self;
these;

and

this

calm general regard to our own happiness

considered, in fact, as the only interested

may be

affection to

The which our nature is competent. and all of them, distinct from self-love, both in their objects, and in the real
special affections are, one

psychological character of the affections themselves.

The object
ment

of the avaricious affection

is

the acquire-

of wealth; of the resentful, the chastisement'

of an offender; of the sensual, something appropriate or suited to that corporeal affection which

forms the reigning appetite at the time. In many of these, is the good of self the proper discrimina-

and the mind of him ; under their power, and engaged in their prosecution, is differently employed from the mind of him, who, at the time, is either devising or doing aught for the general or abstract end of his own
tive object of the affection
is

who

happiness.

None
So

of

these

special affections is

identical with the affection

its

which has happiness for

object.

far fi*om this, the avaricious

man

often, conscious of the strength of his propensity,

*

The

purely disinterested character of a right religious affec-

tion

might be proved by these considerationa.

366
and
at the

PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND

moment

of being urged forward

by

it

to

new

speculations, acknowledges in his heart, that

violence,

he would be happier far, could he but moderate its and be satisfied with an humbler fortune
than that to which his aspirations would carry him.

And the resentful man, in the very act of being tempest-driven to some furious onset against the person who has affronted or betrayed him, may
yet be sensible that, instead of seeking for any
benefit to himself, he
is

rushing on the destruction

life.

of his character, or fortune, or even

And

many

is

the drunkard

who under

the goadings of

an appetite which he cannot withstand, in place of self-love being the principle, and his own greatest
happiness the object, knows himself to be on the road to inevitable ruin. There is an affection which has happiness for its object; but this is nof the afi^ection which rules and has the ascendancy in any of these instances. These are all special
affections, grounded on the affinities which obtain between certain objects and certain parts of human nature and which cannot be indulged beyond a
;

given extent, without distemper and discomfort to the whole nature ; so that, in spite of all the particular gratifications

which follow

in

their train,

the

man

over

whom

they tyrannise

may be unhappy

upon

the whole.

The

very distinction between

the affection of self-love and the special affections proves that there is a corresponding distinction in
their objects;
latter

and
in

this again,

that

many
is

o'f

the

may be

pointed,

gratified, while the

former
that,

disap-

or,

other words,

along with

many

particular enjoyments, the general state of


MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 367

and extreme wretchedness. competent question, what those Special affections arc, which most consist with the general happiness of the mind and this, notwithstanding that they all possess one circumstance in
that of utter
It is therefore a
;

man may be

coram.on

the
it is

unavoidable pleasure appendant to

will help us to

the gratification of each of them.*

8.

This explanation

understand

v/herein

that the distinction in point of enjoyevil affection of

is

ment, between a good and an

nature, properly
*

our

lies.

For there

a certain species

The

following are the clear and judicious observations of Sir

:

James Macintosh on this subject ' In contending-, therefoi'e, that the benevolent affections are disinterested, no more is claimed for them than must be granted Each of to mere animul appetites and to malevolent passions.
these principles alike seeks its own object, for the sake simply of obtaining it. Pleasure is the result of the attainment, but no The desire that another separate part of the aim of the agent. person may be gratified, seeks that outward object alone, according Resentment is as disinto the genei-al course of human desire.

Hunger or thirst terested as gratitude or pity, but not more so. may be as much as the purest benevolence, at variance with selflove.

regard to our

own

general happiness
It

is

not a vice, but

prevailed

in itself an excellent quality.

were well

if it

more

generally over craving and short-sighted appetites. The weakness of the social affections, and the strength of tlie private desires, properly constitute selfishness a vice utterly at vai-iance with the happiness of him who harbours it, and as such, condemned by There are as few who attain the greatest satisfaction to self-love.
;

It is absurd themselves, as who do the greatest good to others. to say with some, that the pleasure of benevolence is selfish, Understanding and reasoning are acts because it is felt by self of self, for no man can think by proxy ; but no man ever called them scljish, why ? Evidently because they do not regard self. Such an arguPrecisely the same reason applies to benevolence. ment is a gross confusion of self, as it is a subject of feeling or It is no more thought, with self considered as the ohject of either. refer the private appetites to self-love because they commonly promote happiness, than it would be to refer them to self-lnitred, iu those frequent cases where their gi'atiScatioa

just to

obstructs

it."

368

PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND

of enjoyment

common

to

them

all.

It

were a
;

contradiction in terms to affirm otherwise

for

it

were tantamount to saying, that an affection

may

be

gratified,

without the actual experience of a

There must be some sensation or when a man obtains that which he is seeking for ; and if it be not a
gratification.

other of happiness, at the time

positive sensation of pleasure,

it

will at least

be the
object,

sensation of a relief from pain, as

that indignation which

when one meets

its

with the opportunity of wreaking upon

had long kept

his heart in a

tumult of disquietude.
take the matter,
if

We

therefore would mis-

we

thought, that a state even of

thorough and unquahfied wickedness was exclusive of all enjoyment for even the vicious affections must share in that enjoyment, which inseparably

attaches to every affection, at the

moment

of its

indulgence.
veriest

And

thus

it

is,

that

even in the

of ecstasy,

Pandemonium, might there be lurid gleams and shouts of fiendish exultation the

merriment of desperadoes

in crime,

who send

forth

the outcries of their spiteful and savage delight,

when some
in

deep-laid villany has triumphed; or

when
have

some

dire perpetration of revenge, they

satisfaction

given

full

and discharge

to the malig-

nity of their accursed nature.

fore

The

assertion thereit is

may be
is

taken too generally, when

stated,

that there
hell of

no enjoyment whatever
;

in the veriest

assembled outcasts
abstract

for

even there, might

essentially
its

there be

many And we must

separate and specific gratifications.

the pleasure

involved in every affection, at the instant of

indulgence, and which cannot possibly be disjoined

MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

from
it is
it,

369

ere

we

see clearly and distinctively wherein

that, in respect of

enjoyment, the virtuous and

vicious affections differ from each other.

true, that there
is

For

it is

common resemblance between

by the universal law and nature must be some sort of agreeable sensation, in the act of their obtaining that which they are seeking after. Yet it is no less true, that, did the former affections bear supreme rule in the heart, they would brighten and tranquillize the whole of human existence whereas, had the latter the entire and practical ascendancy, they would distemper the whole man, and make him as completely wretched as he were completely worthless. 9. There is one leading difference then between a virtuous and a vicious affection that there is always a felt sweetness in the very presence and
;

them

and

that,

of affection, there

contact of the former

whereas, in the presence

and contact of the latter, there is generally or very often at least, a sensation of bitterness. Let them agree as they may in the undoubted fact of a gratification in the attainment of their respective ends,

the affections themselves

may be

long in existence
;

and operation before

then
them.
it
is,

their ends are arrived at

and
will

we

affirm, that if

compared, there
is

be found a wide distinction and dissimilarity betw^een

The
;

very feeling of kindness

pleasant to

and the very feeling of anger is a painful and corrosive one. The latter, we know, is often said to be a mixed feeling because of both the pleasure and the pain which are said to enter into it. But it will be found that the pleasure, in this case, lies in the prospect of full and final gratificar
the heart

q2

370
tion
;

PLEASURE or vinruous, and

and very often, in a sort of current or partial which one may experience beforehand, in the mere vent or utterance by words, of
gratification

the labouring violence that

is

within

seemg

that

words of bitterness, when discharged on the object of our wrath, are sometimes the only, and even the most effective executioners of all the vengeance that

we

meditate

enlist in

men

thus

besides that by their means, we may ; our favour the grateful sympathy of other

obtaining a solace

to

ourselves,

aggravating the punishment of the offender,

exciting
hostility,

and by

against

him,

in

addition

to

our

own

the

hostile

indignation

of his

fellows.

And thus too is it, that, in the case of anger, there may not only be a completed gratification at the
last,

by the
;

infliction

of a full

and
as

satisfactory
it

chastisement
that

but a

gratification,

were by

instalments, with every likely purpose of retaliation

we may form

in our

bosoms, and every sentence

of keen and reproachful eloquence that

may

fall

from our lips. And so anger has been affirmed to be a mixed emotion, from confounding the pleasure
that
lies in

the gratification of the emotion, with the

is

pleasure that

supposed to
the truth

lie in

the feeling of the

gratification, the

apart from the an exceedingly painful one insomuch that the gratification mainly lies in the removal of a pain, or in the being ridded of a
is,

emotion.

But

that,

emotion

is

felt

uneasiness.

Compassion may
feeling.

in

the

same
close

way be termed a mixed

between them,
it

But on
all

attention to these two affections and comparison

will

be found, that

the pleasure

of anger lies in

its gratification,

and

all

the pain of

MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

it in

371

the feeling itself

lies in

whereas

all

the pain of comits gratifica-

passion

the disappointment of

pleasure.

nought but Let the respective gratifications of these two affections the one, by the fulfilled retaUation of a wrong the other, by the fulfilled relief of a suffering 1^ these gratifications be put out of
tion, while in the feeling itself there is

notice altogether, that

we might but
:

attend to the

yet ungratified feelings themselves

and we cannot imagine a greater difference of state between two minds, than that of one which luxuriates in the tenderness of compassion, and that of another which breathes and is infuriated with the dark
passions and the
still

darker purposes of resent-

ment.

Or we may

appeal to the experience of

the same mind, which at one time may have its hour of meditated kindness, and at another its hour
of meditated revenge.

We

speak of these two,

hot in the

moment

of their respective triumphs,

not of the sensations attendant on the success of

lie

and instant sensations which They form two as distinct states in the moral world, as sunshine- and We have but tempest are in the physical world. to name the elements which enter into the comeach
^but of the direct

the feelings themselves.

position

of each,

in

order to suggest the utter

contrariety which obtains between

them

between

the calm and placid cheerfulness on the one hand

of that heart which
^

is

employed

in conceiving the

generous wishes, or in framing the Uberal and fruitful devices of benevolence ; and, on the other
hand, the^prbulence and fierce disorder of the same heart, when burning disdain, or fell and

872

PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND

it

implacable hatred has taken possession of

reaction of
its

the

own

aifronted pride, or aggrieved

it.

sense of the injury which has been done to

10.
for

But perhaps the most favourable moment comparison between them, is when each is

frustrated of its peculiar aim ; and so each is sent back upon itself, with that common suffering to which all the affections are liable the suffering of a disappointment. We shall be at no loss to determine on which side the advantage lies, if we have either felt or witnessed benevolence in tears, because of the misery which it cannot alleviate; and rage, in the agonies of its defeated impotence, because of the haughty and successful defiance of an enemy, whom with vain hostility it has tried to assail, but cannot reach. We have the example of a good affection under disappointment, in the case of virtuous grief or virtuous indignation ; and of a bad affection under disappointment, in the case of eiiTy, when, in spite of every attempt to calumniate or depress its object, he shines forth to universal acknowledgment and applause, in all* the lustre of his vindicated superiority. It marks how distinct these two sets of feelings are from each other, that, with the former, even under the pain

there is a something in the very taste and quality of the feelings themselves,
of disappointment,

which acts as an emollient or a charm, and mitigates

the painfulness

while,

with the

latter,

there

is

nought to mitigate, but every thing to exasperate, and more fiercely to agonize. The ma%nant feelings are no sooner turned inwa|^y, by the arrest of a disappointment from without, than they

MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

eat inwardly
their
;

373

and,

when

foiled in the discharge of

purposed violence upon others, they recoil and, without one soothing ingredient to calm the
labouring effervescence, they kindle a hell in the Internally there is heart of the unhappy owner.

a celestial peace and satisfaction in virtue, even

thouffh in the midst of

be compelled to

outward discomfiture, it w^eep over the unredressed wrongs

its

and

sufferings of humanity.

On the other hand,

the

very glance of disappointed maleyolence, bespeaks of this evil affection, that, of itself, it is a fierce

and fretting distemper of the soul, an executioner of vengeance for all the guilty passions it may have fanned into mischievous activity, and for all the
crimes
11.
it

may have instigated. And this contrast between

a good and an

evil affection, this superiority of the

former to the

latter is fully sustained,

when, instead of looking to the state of mind which is left by the disappointment of each, we look to the state of mind which is left by their respective gratifications the one a state

of sated compassion, the other of sated resentment. There is one most observable distinction between

the states of feeling,

by which an act of compassion on the one hand, and of resentment on the other, It is seldom that man feasts his are succeeded.
eyes on that spectacle of prostrate suffering which,
in a

the same

moment of fury, he hath way that he feasts his

laid at his feet

in

eyes on that picture

of family comfort

which smiles upon him from some cottage home, that his generosity had reared. This looks as if the sweets of benevolence were lasting, whereas the sweets of revengeful malice.

374

PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND

such as they are, are in general but momentary. An act of compassion may extinguish for a time the feeUng of compassion, by doing away that
suffering which

generally
regard.

is

is the object of it; but then it followed up by a feeling of permanent

An act of revenge, when executed to the extent of the desire or purpose, does extinguish and put an end to the passion of revenge ; and is
full

seldom, if ever, followed up by a feeling of permanent hatred. An act of kindness but attaches the more, and augments a friendly disposition "towards its object. It were both untrue in itself, and unfair to our nature to say, that an act of

revenge but exasperates the more, and always augments, or even often augments, a hostile disposition towards its object. It has been said that we

man whom we have injured but whatever the truth of this observation may be, certain it is, that we do not so hate the man of whom we have
hate the
:

taken
if

full

satisfaction for having injured us;

or,

we could imagine aught so monstrous, and happily

who could be regaled for hours with whom his own hands had wounded;

so rare, as the prolonged, the yet unquelled satisfaction of one,

the sighs of him

or, for

months and years, with the pining destitution whom himself had impoverished and brought low this were because the measure of the revenge had not equalled the measure of the
of the household
:

felt

satiated

provocation, only perhaps to be appeased and by death. This, at length, would terminate

the emotion. And here a new insight opens upon us into the distinction between a good and a bad affection. Benevolence, itself of immortal quality,

MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

:

375

malignity, if not would immortalize its objects of death, would short infliction an by appeased,

destroy
itself

them/*

The one
is

is

ever strengthening

upon
;

old objects,

and fastening upon new

its

ones

the other

ever extinguishing

resentment

towards old objects by the pettier acts of chastisement, or, if nothing short of a capital punishment
will

The appease it, by dying with their death. exterminating blov/, the death which "clears all scores" this forms the natural and necessary limit

even to the

fiercest

revenge

whereas, the outgoings

of benevolence are quite indefinite.

In revenge,
if

the affection

is

successively extinguished; and,

In benevolencs, relumed, it is upon new objects. while ever objects, old the affection is kept up for hence a and ones; from new open to excitement
living

which

and a multiplying power of enjoyment, On the same principle peculiarly its own. that we water a shrub just because w^e had planted it, does our friendship grow and ripen the more towards him on whom we had formerly exercisea
is
It.

The

affection of kindness for each individual

is

object survives the act of kindness, or, rather,

strengthened by the act.

have been originally

exercise
;

and,

so far
it

Whatever sweetness may in it, is enhanced by the from being stifled by the

first gratification,

remains in greater freshness than ever for higher and larger gratifications than
before.
cation,
It is the perennial quality of their gratifi-

atfections,

which stamps that superiority on the good we are now contending for. Benevolence
it is, that he a murderer.

So true
is

who

hateth

hb

brother with implacable

hatred

376

PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND

itself

both perpetuates

upon

its

old objects,
it

and

meets with new ones. Not so with revenge, which generally disposes of the old object by one gratification and then must transfer itself to a new object, ere it can
itself into
;

expands

a wider circle as

meet with another

each aifection has

gratification.
its

Let us grant

that

peculiar walk of enjoyment.

The

history of the one

walk presents us with a

;

series, of

accumulations

the history of the other

with a series of extinctions.

But in dwelling on this beautiful peculiarity, which a good affection is distinguished from a by bad one, we are in danger of weakening our immediate argument. We bring forward the matter a great deal too favourably for thie malignant desires of the human heart, if, while reasoning on the supposition of an enjoyment, however transitory in their gratification, we give any room for the imagination that even this is unmixed enjoyment.
12.

We
we

have already stated,

that,

of themselves,
is

and

anterior to their gratification, there

in these desires
;

a painfulness
after all

and that when by

relief

their gratification

get quit of this painfulness,

little
is,

we might

obtain

more than a

from misery.

But

the truth

that, generally speaking,

we

obtain a

great deal less on the side of happiness than this

for, in

most

cases, all that

we

obtain by the gratifiis

cation of a malignant passion, of one misery for another

;

but the exchange

and

this apart still

the remorse of an evil perpetration.

There

is

from one

famihar instance of
versation

it,

which often occurs in conoffensive in

when, piqued by something

the remark or mJ^nner of our fellows,

we react with

MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

377

A severity which humbles and overwhelms him. In

this case, the

pain of the resentment

is

succeeded
too,
all

by the pain we

feel in the spectacle of that distress

this,

which ourselves have created; and

agthe

gravated perhaps by the reprobation of

of the

by-standers, affording thereby a miniature example

painful alternations which are constantly
;

taking place in the history* of moral evil

when

the

misery of wrong affections

is

but replaced, to the

perpetrator himself, by the misery of the

actions to which they have hurried him.

wrong
thus

It is

that a

life

of frequent gratification
life

may, notwithIt mq|||||k

standing, be a

of int'ense wretchedness.

help our imagination of such a state, to conceive or

one, subject every hour to the agonies of hunger,

with such a mal-conformation at the same time in

his

organ of
felt

taste, that, in

food of every description,

he

a bitter and universal nausea.

There were
of cruel

here a constant gratification, yet a constant and

severe

endurance

sufferings

the displacement of one

;

a mere alternation

set of agonies,

by the substitution of other agonies in their room. This is seldom, perhaps never realized in the
physical world

but in the moral world

it is

a great
at

and general phenomenon.

The example shows may be

least the possibility of a constitution,

under which
nothing

a series of incessant gratifications

better than a restless succession of distress

and
of

disquietude; and that such should be the constitution of our moral nature as to
vice a
life

make a
is

life

of vanity

and cruel vexation,

strong

experimental evidence of

Him who

ordained this

378

PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND

that

constitution,

He

hatoth

iniquity,

that

He

loveth righteousness.
13.

But the pecuharity which we have been

incidentally led to notice,

inference also.
final issues of

We

is, in itself, pregnant with should augur hopefully of the

when we
finitely

conclude favourably of
find its

our moral constitution, as well as Him who hath ordained it

workmgs

to

be such,

that,

on

the one hand, the feeling of kindness towards an

individual object,

not only survives, but

is
;

inde-

strengthened by the acts of kindness

and,

^1

the other hand, that, not only does an act of

^R^enge

satiate and put an end to the feeling of revenge, but even, that certain acts of hostility

make
this

towards the individual object of our hatred will us relent from this hatred, and at length
it

extinguish

altogether.

May we

not perceive in

economy a balance

in point of tendency,

at length of ultimate effect

and on the side of virtue ?

May it not warrant the expectation, that, while benevolence, that great conservative principle of
being, has in
well as of
its
it

a principle conservative of

itself

as

objects, the outbreakings of evil are

but partial and temporary; and that the moral world, viewed as a progressive system and now

been so constructed all the good affections, and the indefinite expansion of them to new objects and over a larger and ever-widening territory ? At all events, whatever reason there may be to fear, that, in the future arrangements of nature and providence, both virtue and vice will
its

only in

transition state, has

as to secure both the perpetuity of

MISERY or VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

379

be capable of immortality we might gather from what passes mider our eyes, in this rudimental and incipient stage of human existence, that even with
our present constitution virtue alone is capable of For malice and falsehood a blissful immortaUty. carry in them the seeds of their own wretchedness,
if

not of their

own

destruction.
if

Only grant the

the character of

soul to be imperishable; and.

is to be gathered from the final issues government over which he presides it says much for the moral character of Him who framed us, that, unless there be an utter reversal of the

the governor
of the

nature which Himself has given, then, in respect to the power of conferring enjoyment or of maintaining the soul in
it is

its

healthiest

and happiest mood,

faileth.

righteousness alone which endureth for ever,

and charity alone which never

14.

And

beside taking account of the special

enjoyments which attach to the special virtues, we might observe on the general state of that mind, which, under the consistent and comprehensive
principle
of being or doing
rightly to acquit itself of all the

Beside the perpetual feast

science,
particular, gratifications

what it ought, studies moral obhgations. of an approving con-

and the constant recurrence of those which attach to the indulgence of every good afi'ection is it not quite obvious of every mind which places itself under a supreme regimen of morality, that then, it is in its best possible condition with regard to enjoyment like a well-strung instrument, in right and proper

tone, because all

its

parts are put in right adjustIf conscience

ment with each other ?

be indeed

380
the

PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND

superior faculty of our nature, then, every
it is

tune

cast

down from

this

pre-eminence, there
;

must be a sensation of
whole man
feels

painful dissonance

and the

out of sorts, as one unhinged or

is

denaturalized.

This perhaps

the main reason

that a state of well-doing stands associated with a

state of well-being
;

and why the special virtue of

temperance
is

is

not more closely associated with the

health of the body, than the general habit of virtue

the soul.

with a wholesome and well-conditioned state of Inhere is then no derangement as it

were in the system of our nature all the powers, whether" superior or subordinate, being in their
right places,

and

all

without dislocation.

It

moving without discord and were anticipating our argu-

ment, did we refer at present to the confidence and regard wherewith a virtuous man is surrounded
in the world.

have not yet spoken of the moral constitution from without, but only of the inward pleasures and satisfactions which are yielded in the workings of
adaptations
to

We

man's

the constitution
it

itself.

And

surely

when we

find
its

to

have been so constructed and attuned by

Maker, that, in all the movements of virtue there is a felt and grateful harmony, while a certain jarring sense of violence and discomposure ever attends upon the opposite ^we cannot imagine how the moral character of that hehvj: who Himself devised this constitution and established all its tendencies, can be more clearly or convincingly read, than in phenomena like these.

15.

We

have already said that the distinction so

well established by Butler, between the object of

MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS.

our affection and
able pleasure,
its

381

accompanying, nay, insepareffectual

was the most

argument

that could be brought to bear against the selfish

in a

The virtuous affection that is system of morals. man's breast simply leads him to do what he
ought
;

and in that object he rests and terminates. Like every other affection, there must be a pleasure conjoined with the prosecution of it ; and at last, a full and final gratification in the attainment of But the object must be distinct from its object. the pleasure, which itself is founded on a prior suitableness between the mind and its object. When a man is actuated by a virtuous desire ; it is the virtue itself that he is seeking, and not the gratification that is in it. His single object is to be or to do rightly though, the more intent he is upon this object, the greater will, the greater must be his satisfaction if he succeed in it. Nevertheless, it is not the satisfaction which he is seeking ; it is the object which yields the satisfaction the object too for its own sake, and not for the sake of its accompanying or its resulting enjoyment. Nay, the more strongly and therefore the more exclu.

sively set
will
will

upon

virtue for its

its

own sake ;' the

less

he think of
his actual

enjoyment, and yet the greater

enjoyment be.
disinterested
it

In other words,
is,

virtue,

the

more

is

the

prolific of

happiness to him
that,

who

follows it;

more and

then

it is,

when

freest of all
it

from the taints

of mercenary selfishness,

yields to its votary the

most perfect and supreme enjoyment.

its

Such

is

the constitution of our nature, that virtue loses no*

disinterested character; and yet

man

loses not

382
bis

PLEASURE OF VIIITUOUS, &C.

reward
;

and the author of

all its

this

constitution.
its

He who

hath ordained

laws and

conse-

quences, has given signal proof of His

virtue of

own supreme

regard for virtue, and therefore of the supreme

His own character, in that He hath so framed the creatures of His will, as that their perfect goodness and perfect happiness are at one. Yet the union of these does not constitute their unity. The union is a contingent appointment of the Deity; and so is at once the evidence. and the effect of the goodness that is in His own nature. 16. This then is our second argument for the moral character of God, grounded on the moral constitution of man; and prior, as yet, to any view of its adaptation to external nature. It is distinct from the first argument, as grounded on the phenomena of conscience, which assumes the office of a judge within the breast, all whose decisions are on the side of benevolence and justice and which is ever armed with a certain power of enforcement, both in the pains of remorse and the pleasures of self-approbation. These, however, are distinct and ought to be distinguished from the direct pleasures of virtue in itself, and the direct pains of vice in itself, which form truly separate ingredients, on the one hand of a present and often very painful correction, on the other hand, of a present and very precious reward.

POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT.

383

CHAPTER

IV.

The Power and Operation of Habit.

1.

We have as yet been occupied with what may be

termed the instant sensations, wherewith morality with the voice of conis beset in the mind of man

science which goes immediately before, or with

the sentence whether of approval or condemnation,

which comes immediately

after

it

and

latterly,

with those states of feeling which are experienced at the moment when under the power of those
affections, to

virtue or vice,

which any moral designation, be it of the pleasure which is applicable

there

is

in the very presence

one, the distaste,

and contact of the the bitterness which there is in

of juxtaposition, as they

the presence and contact of the other.

2.

These phenomena
be termed
;

may

these contiguous antecedents and

consequents of the moral and the immoral in man, speak strongly the purpose of Him who ordained

our mental constitution, in having inserted there such a constant power of command and encourage-

ment on the
the latter.

side of the former, and a like constant operation of checks and discouragements against

But, perhaps, something more

collected of the design

may be and character of God, by

our observation prospectively in the history of man, and so extending our regards
stretching forward
to the more distant consequences of virtue or vice, both on the frame of his character and the state of

384 THE POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT.

his

enjoyments.

By

studying

these

posterior

results,

we approximate our
That

views towards the

final issues of that administration

under which we

are placed.

defensive apparatus, wherewith

is guarded and protected, might indicate a special care or design in the pre-

the embryo seed of plants

server of

it.

What

that design particularly is

comes

to

be clearly and certainly known, when, in

the future history of the plant,

functions of the seed are,

we

learn what the

after

it

has come to

maturity;

and then observe,

that,
it

not
3.

suffered universally to perish,

had it been would have led

to the mortality of the individual, for that is

already an inevitable law, but to the extinction and

mortality of the species.

For tracing forward man's moral

history, or
it

the changes which take place in his moral state,

is

necessary that

we should

advert to the influence

of habit.

Yet

it is

not properly the philosophy of

is

habit wherewith our argument

concerned, but

with the leading facts of

its

practical operation.

A beneficial

effect

might

stiU

remain an evidence
it

of the divine goodness,

by whatever steps

should

be efficiently or physically brought about its power in this way depending not on the question how it is, but on the fact that so it is. It were really, therefore, deviating from our own strict and
pertinent line of inquiry, did

we

stop to discuss

the philosophic theory of habit, or suspend our

own independent
settled

beside

attaching to

reasoning till that theory was most unwisely and unnecessarily our theme, all the discredit of an
^
*

obscure or questionable speculation

th

POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT.

385

palpable and sure results both in the material and mental world, more than with the recondite processes in either, that theism has chiefly to do
it
;

and

is

by the former more than by the

is

latter that

the cause of theism

4.

npholden.

might only observe, in passing, that the modification introduced by Dr. Thomas Brown into the tlieory of habit, was perhaps uncalled for, even
for the

We

accomplishment of his
demonstrate that
it

own

purpose,

which

was

to

required no peculiar or

law of the human constitution to account He resolves the whole operafor its phenomena. only, he tion of habit into the law of suggestion would extend that law to states of feelings, as well
original

as to thoughts or states of thought.*

We

are

all

two objects have been seen or thought of together on any former occasion, then the thought of one of them is apt to suggest the thought of the other, and the more apt the more frequently

aware that

if

that the suggestion

that, if the suggestion

has taken place insomuch, have taken place very often,

following is the passage taken from his forty-third lecwhich Dr. Brown seems to connect feeUng with feeUng by the same mental law which connects thought with thoughi. "To explain the influence of habit ia increasing the tendency to certain actions I must remark what I have already more than once repeated that the suggesting influence which is usually expressed in the phrase associat'iGn of ideas, though that very improper phrase would seem to limit it to our ideas or conceptions only, and has unquestionably produced a mistaken belief of this

The
in

ture,

partial

operation of a general influence

to

is

not Umited to those

but occurs
also

more than
equal
force

any other
other

states of mind,

with

in

feelings,

which are not commonly termed

deas or conceptions; that our desires or other emotions, for example, may, like them, form apart of our trains of suggestion," &c.

S^e another equally ambiguous passage

in his sixty-fourth lecture.

VOL.

I.

388

POWER AND OPERATION OP HABIT.

shall find
it

we
to

extremely

difficult, if

not impossiLIo,

break the succession between the thought which

is

suggests and the thought which

suggested by
it

it.

Now

Dr.

Brown has conceived

that, if

necessary to

insomuch,

extend

this principle to feelings as well as

thoughts

on a former occasion a certain object have been followed up by a certain feeling, or even if one feeling have been foUov/ed up by another, then the thought of the object introduces
the feeling, or the one feeling introduces the other
feeling into the mind,

on the same principle that

thought introduces thought.

be inclined
not in
to hold that

Now we should

rather

thought introduces feeling, consequence of the same law of suggestion

whereby thought introduces thought, but in virtue of the direct power which lies in the object of the
thought
object
to excite that feeling.

When

a voluptuous

awakens a voluptuous feeling, this^ is not by suggestion, but by a direct influence of its own. When the picture of thai voluptuous object awakens the same voluptuous feeiirpf, we v\^ould not ascribe it to suggestion, but still put it down to the power
of the object, whether presented or only represented,
to

awaken
but

certain emotions.

And

as litde

would

we

ascribe the excitement of the feeling to suggesstill

tion,

to the direct
it

the object

though

and original power ol were pictured to us only in

thought, instead of being pictured to us in visible

imagery.

In like manner, when the thougjit of an injury awakens in us anger, even as the injury itself did at the moment of its infliction, we should not ascribe this to that peculiar law which is termed the law of sus^gestion, and which undoubtedh"

POWER AND OPF.RATinx OF HABIT.

connects thought with thought.
ascribe
it

387

But wo should law which connects an whether that object with its appropriate emotion object be present to the senses, or have only been recalled by the memory and is present to the thoughts. Vve sustain an injury, and we feel
wholly
to that

resentment in
sequence.

consequence,

without
to

surely,

the

law of suggestion having had aught

do with the

We
is

see the aggressor afterwards,

and

our ano:er

revived against him, and with this particular sur/'ession the law of suggestion has not, however, in the way of certainly had lo do

thought suggesting feeling, but only in the

thouiJ:ht
sucrcrestinof

way
it

of

thouo-ht.

In

truth

is

succession of three terms.

The
of the

sight of the

man

awakens a

recollection

injury

and the

thought of the injury aw^akens the emotion. The first sequence, or that which obtains between the
first

and second term,

is

suggestion of thought by thought,

a pure instance of the or, to speak in

the old language, of the association of ideas.

The

second
say, not

sequence, or that

the middle and last

which obtains between term, is still, Dr. Brown would

it

an instance of suggestion, but of thought

suggesting the feeling wherewith

was formerly

Whereas, in our apprehension, it is due, not to the law of suggestion, but to the law which connects an .object, whether present at the time or thouo^ht uoon afterwards, with its counteraccompanied.
part emotion.
Still

the result

is

the same, Iiowever

surely,

differently accounted for.

of the

One can think, resentment which now occupies him,

as well
it
i.?

as he can think of a past resentment

indeed

38S

POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT.

difficult to imagine how he can feel a resefitment without thinking of it. Let some one thought, then, by the proper law of sugo^estion, have intro-

duced the thought of an injury that had been done to us; this second thonght introduces -the feeling of resentment, not by the law of su2;-gestion, but by the law which relates an object, whether
present or thought upon, to
this
its appropriate emotion thought upon, and, not the emotion, but the thouo^ht of the emotion recalls the thoucrht
;

emotion
first

is

of the

emotion that was

felt

at the

orio^inal

infliction

of the injury;

and

this

thought again
itself,

recalls to us the

thought of the injury

and

perhaps the thought of other or similar injinies, which, as at the first, excites anew the feeling of
anger, but, at this particular step,

law

different

by means of a from that of suggestion, even the law

of our emotions, in virtue of which, certain objects,

when present in any way to the cognizance of the understanding, awaken certain sensibilities in the heart. It is thus that thoughts and feelings might
reciprocally introduce each other, not by

means of but one law of suggestion extending in common to them both, but by the intermingling of two laws in
this repeating or circulating process,

even the law of suggestion, acting only upon the thoughts and the law of emotion, by which certain objects, when
;

presented to the senses or

(o the

memory, have the

power

to

awaken

certain correspondent emotions.

We

which mere feelings either suggesting or being suggested by other feelings, separately from thouofhts more esoecially wheUj
in this
to

way
the

get quit of the mysticism

attaches

notion

of

POWEIl AND OPEUATiON OF liABiT.

389

by the association of thoiigbts or of ideas alone, and the direct power which hes in the objects of
these ideas to awaken certain emotions, all the phenomena, as far as they depend on suggestioUy

are capable of being explained.

certain thought

or object

may
;
;

suggest the thought of a former

the resentment, thus

provocation

this

of resentment

thought might excite a feeling felt or thought

upon, might send back the mind to a still more and this vivid impression of its original cause as^ain might prolong or awaken the resentment
;

anew, and

in greater freshness

than before.

The

and fiery efferultimate effect not by the Yet irascible feeling. vescence of laws in distinct two ])ut of law, one of operation
might be a
fierce

the

human

constitution

the

first that,

in virtue of

which, thoughts snggest thoughts; the second that, in virtue of which, the object thus thought upon

awakens the emotion that is suited to it, 5. But while we have ventured to offer this correction on the language of Dr. Brown, we are far from being satisfied that the law of suggestion
alone will account for the evergrowing inveteracy It supplies, we think, a strong auxiliary of habit.
force
;

but

is

operation.

not the only force concerned in th It accounts for the increased impor;

tunity of the solicitations from without

but,

over

and above

this,

we apprehend

that the progress of

repeated indulgence induces a subjective

upon the mind

if
it

in virtue of which, there

tlie

is

change an in-

creasing susceptibility, or rather a greater strength,

may

be so called, of inertia or passiveness

that

within so

propensities

become every day

390

POWER

AN!) OPEIIATION OF HABIT.

that too with a less

more headlong, and

6.

power of

resistance than before.

Bat though
strict

for

oace we have thus adverted

siihject,
it is

to the

philosophy of the

it

will be

apparent, that, in this instance,

tical

of no prac-

necessity for the purposes of oar

it

argument

and

is

truly the

same

in

many

other instances,

where,
reason
them.e

if

instead of reasoning theologically on the

t'le mechanism, we should on the modus opci^andi, we

palpable operations of
scientifically

would run
of

into really irrelevant discussions.

The

of Habit, in as far as these efects serve to indicate the design or character of Him Vvho is the author
is

our present chapter

the

effects

of our mental constitution. It matrers not to any conclusion of ours, by what recondite, or, it may be, yet undiscovered process these effects are

brought about

and whether the common theory, : or that of Dr. Brown, or that ao;ain as modified

ana corrected by ourselves, is the just one. It is enough to know, that, it" any given process of intermingled thought and feeling liave been described by us once, there are laws at work, which, on the first step of that process again recurring, would incline us to describe the whole of the
process over again

and with the greater power and certainty, the more frequently that process has been repeated. We arci perfectly sure that the more frequently any particular sequence between thought and thought may have occurred, the more
;

it recur so tliat when once the first thought has entered the mind, we may all the more confidently reckon on its being followed up

readily will

POWEU AND OPEIIATION OF HABIT.

by the second.
is

391

concerned,

we hold enough

This, so far at least as suggestion for explaining the

ever recurring force and faciUty, wherewith feehngs also will arise and be followed up by their indulgence and that, just in proportion to the frequency

wlierewith in given circumstances they have been awakened and indulged formerly. In as far as the
objects of gratification are the exciting causes

which

stimulate
then,

and awaken the

of the
causes,

desires of gratification,

any process

ivhich ensures the presence

will

and
the

application

also
result

ensure

from them. fulfilment of the effects the wine that of perception or If it be the presence and appetite the stirs up which us stands before
;

which

if,

instead of acting on the precept of looking not

it is

unto the wine when

till

red,

we

continue

to

look

the appetite be so inflamed that the indulgence becomes inevitable th^, as we looked at it con-

tinuously
absent.

when

present,

will
it

we, by the law oi

continuously

sugo^estion, be apt to think of

when

If the one continuity

was not broken by

any considerations of principle or prudence

less readily will

so the

the other continuity be broken in

like

When we revisit the next social manner. probably resign ourselves to shall company, we that we did formerly sensations of order very the and the more surely, the oftener that that order And as the has already been described by us. order of objects with their sensations wher present,
so
is

the order of thoughts with their deslic*:

when

absent.

This order

forces

itseif

upon tLa mind

with a strength proportional *c the frequency of and desires, v/hen not evaded by repetition it's
;

392
the

POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT.

mind
shifting
its attention away from the can only be appeased by their

objects of them,

indulgence.
7.
It
is

thus that he

who

entei's

on a career of

vice,

enters on a career of headlong degeneracy.

If even for once we have described that process of thought and feeling, which leads, whether through the imagination or the senses, from the first pre-

sentation of a tempting object to a guilty indulgence

this

of itself establishes a probability, that, on

steps

the recurrence of that object,

by the same

to

the

we shall pass onward same consummation.

And it is a probability ever strengthening with every repetition of the process, till at length it
advances towards the moral certainty of a helpless surrender to the tyranny of those evil passions, which we cannot resist, just because the will itself
is

and we choose not to resist them. we might trace the progress of intemperance and licentiousness, and even of dishonesty, to whose respective solicitations we have
in thraldom,
is

It

thus that

yielded at the

first

till

by continuing
prostrate

to yield,

we

become the
force that
is

passive,

the

subjects

of a

uncontrollable, only because

in

we have
it.

seldom or never
It is

good earnest

tried to control

not that
;

we
but

are struck of a sudden with moral

impotency

benumbed into it. made instant seizure upon the faculties, or taken them by storm. It proceeds by an influence that is gentle and
are gradually

we

The power

of temptation

has not

almost insensibly progressive

^just

as progressive

in truth, as the association between particular ideas

is

strengthened by the frequency of their succession.

POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT.

iiut even as that association

393

may

at length
lirst

become

inveterate,

insomuch

that

when

the

idea finds

eniry into

the mind, we cannot withstand the importunity wherewith the second insists upon
it
;

followino-

so

miglit

alike

inveterate

thonirhts

the moral habit

become

succeeding

thoughts,

and urging onward their counterpart desires, in that wonted order, which had hitherto connected the beginning of a temptation with its full and final victory. At each repetition, would he find it more difficult to break this order, or to lay an arrest upon it til] at length, as the fruit of this wretched regimen, its unhappy patient is lorded over by a power of moral evil, v/hich possesses the whole man, and wields an irresistible or rather an unre-

sisted
8.

ascendancy over him. But this melancholy

indulgence,

process,

leading to a

vicious

be counteracted by an opposite process of resistance, though with far

facility

may

greater

at

the

first

yet
in.

facility

ever

augmenting,

in proportion as the efl^ectual resistance

is

of temptation

persevered

moment,
science
is

at

which pleasure would

to refrain,

allure,

That balancing and conbe regarded as

urging us

may

the point of departure or divergency,

whence one

or other of the two processes will take their com-

mencement.

Each

of them consists in a particular

succession of ideas with their attendant feelings

and whichever of them may happen to be described once, has, by the law of suggestion, the greater chance, in the same circumstances, of being described over again. Should the mind dwell oi:
an object of allurement, and the consideration of
g

r2

394

POWER ANI> OPERATION OF HABIT.

principle not to be entertained

it

will pass

onward

from the first incitement to the final and guilty indulgence by a series of stepping-stones, each of
v/hich will present itself more readily in future;

chance of arrest or interruption by before. But should these suggestions be admitted, and far more should they prevail then, on the principle of association, will they be all the more apt to intervene, on the repetition of the same circumstances and again break that line of continuity, wliich, but for this intervention, would have led from a
less

and with

the suggestions of conscience than

temptation to a

turpitude or a crime.

If

on the

occurrence of a temptation formerly, conscience did interpose, and represent the evil of a compliance, and so impress the man with a sense of
oblio:ation,

as led

him

to

dismiss the fascinatina"

his
is,

from the presence of away from it the likelihood

object

mind, or

to

hurry
train

that the recurrence

of a similar temptation will suggest the

of thoughts
beneficial

same
the

and
;

feelings

and lead

to

same

result

increasing

and this is a likelihood ever with every repetition of the process.

which would have termrnated in a is dispossessed by the train which conducts to a resolution and an act of virtrain

The

vicious indulgence,

tuous
find

self-denial.

The

thoughts

v.diich

tend to

awaken emotions and purposes on

readier

the side of duty

;

thoughts
desire

entrance into the mind and tho which awaRen and urge forward the of what is evil more readily give way. The
repetition

positive force

ly every

on the side of vitrne is augmented, of the train which leads to a

POWER AND OPERATION OF KABIT.

virtnous determination.
force on the side of vice
to the
is

395
to

The

resistance

this

weakened,

in proportion

frequency wherewith that train of suggestions which would have led to a vicious indulgence, is It is thus that when broken and discomfited.

one

is

successfully resolute

in his

opposition to

evil, the

power of maidng the achievement and the facility of the achievement itself are both upon the increase and virtue makes double gain to herself, by every separate conquest v.'hich she may havo won. The humbler attainments of moral worth and the aspiring are first mastered and secured disciple may pass onward in a career that is quite indefinite io nobler deeds and nobler sacrifices. 9. And this law of habit when enlisted on the side of righteousness, not only strengthens and makes sure our resistance to vice, but facilitates
;
;

the most arduous

performances of virtue.

The

man whose
to
v/ill,

thoughts, with the purposes and doings

which they lead, are at the bidding of conscience, by frequent repetition, at length describe even as in the same track almost spontaneously

physical education, things

the
first,

laboriously learned at

feeling of

come to be done at last without the an effort. And so, in moral education, every new achievement of principle smooths the way to future achievements of the same kind and <he precious fruit or purchase of each moral victory is to set us on higher and firmer vantage-ground for the conquests of principle in all time coming.
;

He who
avarice,

resolutely bids away the suggestions of when they come into conflict with the

incumbent

generosity

or

the

suggestions

of

396

PO^VER AND OPERATION OF HABIT..

voluptuousness,
the

when they come

self-denial
;

into conflict with

incumbent

or

the sugo-estions of

anger, when they come into conflict with the incumbent act of magnanimity and forbearance will at length obtain, not a respite only, but a final

deliverance from their intrusion.

Conscience, the

longer
to these

it

has made

and passion the less will it give way adverse forces, tliemselves weakened by the repeated defeats which they have sustained in
selfishness
:

way

over the obstacles of

warfare of moral discipline

oftener that conscience

Or, in other words, the

which she claims violence, and less the strength

ment,
to
to cast

makes good the supremacy the greater would be the work of

for its

accomplish-

down from that station of practical guidance and command which of riirht belono-s
her

her. It is in great part because, in virtue of the law of suggestion, those trains of thought

and

feelinsf,

which connect her

first

biddinsfs

with
every

their final execution, are the less exposed at

/.ew instance to be disturbed, and the more likely to be repeated over again, that every good principle
is

afiection

more strengthened by its exercise, and every good is more strengthened by its indulgence

than before.

The

acts of virtue ripen into habits

result
is,

and the goodly and permanent

the forma-

tion or establishment of a virtuous character.

10. This then forms a distinct argument in the mental constitution for the virtuous character of

Him who
delights

ordained

it.

The
;

voice

of authority

within, bidding

us to virtue

and the immediat-^

attendant on

obedience, certainly, speak

strongly for the moral ch.arncter of that administra-

POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT.

397

don under which we are placed. Bat, by looking to posterior and permanent results, we have the advantage of viewing the system of that administration in progress.

Instead of the insulated acts,

we

are led to reo-ard the abiding

lating

consequences

and

our observation

throui>:h

and the accumuby stretching forward laro^er intervals and to

more distant

points in the moral history of

likelier

men

we
on

are

in

circumstances
;

for

obtaining; a

final destination and so of seizing mighty and mysterious secret the reigning policy of the divine government, whence we might

glimpse of their
this

collect the character of

Him who

hatii

ordained

it.

And

surely,

it is

of prime importance to be noted in

this examination, that by every act of virtue wo become more powerful for its service and by every act of vice we become more helplessly its slaves. Or, in other words, were these respective moral
;

regimens fully developed into their respective consummations, it would seem, as if by the one, we
should be conducted
within,
to that state, to

where the faculty

which

is felt

be the rightful, would also

become the reigning sovereign, and then we should have the full enjoyment of all the harmony and happiness attendant upon virtue whereas, by the

other,

those

passions

of

our

nature

felt

to

be

would obtain the lawless ascendency, and subject their wretched bondsmen to the turbulence, and the agou}^, and the sense of degradation, which,
inferior,

by the very constitution of our being, are inseparable from the reign of moral evil. 11. We might not fully comprehend the design or meaning of a process, till we have seen the end

398
of
it.

POWER AND
Had

Ot>ERATIO^; OF HABIT.

there been
state

our present
alleviated.

We

no death, the mystery of might have been somewhat might then have seen, in bolder

rehef and indelible character, the respective con-

summations o{ vice and virtue

habit

perhaps the world

fixture

partitioned into distinct moral territories,

of

many

centuries
first,

had given
all

where the and

establishment,

to

a society of the upright,

goodness, as the
discipline

now

in the

firm possession of
that

well-earned result of
society

wholesome
;

through which they had passed

of
iniquity,

and, second, to a

the reprobate, now hardened in all and abandoned to the violence of evil passions no lonjrer to be controlled and never to be eradicated. We might then have witnessed the

peace, the

contentment, the universal confidence

the

and

love,

melody of
of
the

soul,
;

that

reigned in
the

the dwellings

righteous

and contrasted
strifes,
fell

these with the disquietudes,

the

and fierce and hate

excesses

collisions of injustice

and mutual disdain

implacable, the frantic bacchanalian with their dreary intervals of remorse

and

which kept the other region in and which, constituted as we are, must trouble or dry up all the well-springs of enjoyment, whether in the hearts of individuals or in the bosom of families. We could have been at no loss, to have divined, from the history and state
lassitude,

perpetual anarchy,

a \Vorld, the policy of its ruler. We should have recognised in that peculiar economy, by which every act, whether of virtue or vice, made of such
its

performer still more virtuous or more vicious than before, a moral remuneration on the one hand

POWER AND OPERATION OF HAR!T.

and a moral penalty on the
nient
evil,

399

otlier

witli

an cnlianco-

of

all

the

consequences, whether good or

tliem.

which flowed from each of

AVc could
tlie

not have mistaken the purposes and mind of

Deity
the

when we

saw thus
of

palpahly, and throuo-h

the
;

demonstrations

experience,

ultimate

effects

of these respective processes

condition,

and, in this

total diversity

of character, with a like total diver-

sity

of

were

made

to

perceive,

that

riohteousness

was its own eternal reward, and that wickedness was followed up, and that for ever, with
the bitter fruit of
12.
sult,
its

own ways.
view of
this resio;ht

Death
that
it

so far intercepts the

is

not here the object of

or of

experience.

Still,

however,
are

it

remains the ubject

truth
is,

of our

Ij^cely

anticipation.

The

that the

process which
cess

we

now

contemplatino:, the pro-

by which character is formed and strengthened and perpetuated, suggests one of the strongest arguments within compass of the light of nature, In the system of for the immortality of the soul.

world we behold so many adaptations, not only between the faculties of sentient beings, and their counterpart objects in external nature; but
the

between every

historical

progression

in

nature,

and a fulfilment of corresponding nitude which it ultimately lands in

death.

interest or

mag-

that we cannot
it

believe of man's moral history, as if

terminated in

More

especially

when we
laboriously

think of the
it

virtuous

character,
it

how
its

is
;

reared,
but, at

and how slowly

lenoth,

advances
tin's

to perfection

how

indefinite

capabilities of power and

of eniovment are. afier

education of habits has

400

POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT.

been completed
great
arrested on his

it

seems
to

like
if

the

breach of

and general analogy,

man

is to

be suddenly

way

the magnificent resalt, for

might well be deemed that the whole of having just reached his life was bnt a preparation the full capacity of an enjoyment, of which he had only been permitted, in this evanescent scene, a few brief and passing foretastes. It were like the infliction of a violence on the continuity of things, of which we behold no similar example, if a being so gifted were thus left to perish in the full matuThe rity of his powers and moral acquisitions. very eminence that he has won, we naturally look upon as the guarantee and the precursor of some warranting the hope, great enlargement beyond it therefore, that Death but transforms without destroying him, or, that the present is only an embryo or rudimental state, the final development of which is in another and future state of existence. 13. This is not the right place for a full exposition of this argument. We might only observe, that there is an evidence of man's immortality, in the moral state and history of the bad upon earth,

which

it

as well as of the good.

The

truth

is.

that nature's

most vivid anticipations of a conscious futurity on

the other side of death, are the

forebodings of

guilty fear, not the bright anticipations of confident

and

rejoicing hope.

We

speak not merely of the

to

unredressed wrongs inflicted by the evil upon the

righteous,

and which seem

between

demand an

afterplace

of reparation and vengeance.

settled questions

Beside those un-

man and man, which

death breaks off nt the middle, and for the adjust-

POWELl AND OPERATION OF

11

ABIT.

401

ment of which one

eternal justice

feels

as if

it

were the cry of

that there should be a reckonino^

is felt,

afterwards

beside these, there

still,

more
yet

directly

and vividly
controversy,

liie

sense

of a

unsettled

whom
is

between the sinner and the God he has ofiended. The notion of immortality

far

more powerfully and habitually suggested by

by the dread of a coming by the consciousness of merit,
claim
to

the perpetual hauntings or misgivings of this sort

of undefined terror,

penalty
or

rather than
Nor
is

of

a yet unsatisfied
the

a well-earned

reward.

argument

at all lessened

by
be

that observed

phenomenon
;

in the history of guilt,

it

the decay of conscience

a hebetude,^if

may

so termed, of the moral sensibilities,

which keeps
towards the
very torpor

pace with the growth of a man's wickedness, and,

at

times,

becomes

quite

inveterate

termination of his mortal career.

The

and
all

tranquillity of

such a

state,

the

account
as

more emphatically to is yet to come, when, instead of

would only appear tell, that a day of

rioting,

impunity of a hardihood that shields him alike from reproach and fear, conscience
heretofore, in the
will at length

re-awaken

to

upbraid him for his

its

misdoings

at

once the asserter of

owii cause,

and the executioner of its own sentence. And even the most desperate in crime, do experience, at times, such gleams and resuscitations of moral
light, as

themselves
still

feel to

be the precursors of a

more tremendous when their own conscience, fully let loose upon them, shall, in the hands of an angry God, be a minister of fiercest
revelation

vengeance.

Certain

it

is,

that,

if

death, instead

402
of an

POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT.

lO
=>ee

entire aniiihilalioii, be but a removal another and a different scene of existence, we

in this,

when combined with

of
the

the

known laws and

at
least,

processes

mind, the

possibility,

There is much in the business, and entertainments, and converse, and day-light of that urgent and obtruding world by which we are surrounded, to carry off the attention of the mind from its own guiltiness, and so, to snspen.d that agony, which, when thrown back upon itself and dissevered from all its objects of gratification, will be felt, without mitigation and
of snch a consummation.

without
mind,,

respite.

In

the
in

busy whirl of
all

life,

the
find,

drawn

upon

directions,

can

outwardly and abroad, the relief of a constant diversion from the misery of its own internal processes. But a slight change in its locality or
circumstances, would deliver it up to the full burden and agony of these nor can we imagine a more intense and intolerable wretchedness, than that which would ensue, simply by rescinding the connexion which obtains in this world between a
its
;

depraved mind and

tion

its

external

when,
it
;

forced inwardly

means of gratificaon its own haunted

met with nothing^ there but reveno^e and raging appetites, that never rest from their unappeased fermentation and withal, joined to this perpetual sense of want, a pungent and pervading sense of worthlessness. It is the
tenement,
unsatiated
;

constant testimony of criminals, that, in the horrors

and the tedium of solitary imprisonment, they undergo the most appalling of all penalties penalty, therefore, made up of moral elements

PO\rER
alone
:

AND OPEIIATIOX OF HACIT.

403

as neitlier pain, nor Imnger, nor sickness,

necessarily forms
ino-ly

any of
tiie

its

ingredients.

Il

strik-

demonstrates

cliaracter of
tliat

Him who

so

constrncted onr moral natnre,

ings of
its

from the work-

mechanism
so

alone, there should be evolved

tremendous on tlie children of iniquity, insomuch- that a sinner meets with sorest vens^eance when simply letl to the fruit of his own ways whether by the death which carries his disembodied spirit to its Tartarus or by a resura suffering
;

rection
full

to

another scene
of his
is

possession

of existence, where, in earthly habits and earthly

passions, he

nevertheless

doomed

to everlasting

separation from their present counterpart and earthly

enjoyments.

There is a distinction sometimes made 14. between the natural and arbitrary rewards of virtue, or between the natural and arbitrary punishments of vice. The arbitrary is exemplified in there in general the enactments of human lav/ being no natural or necessary connexion between the crimes which it denounces, and the penalties as betv^^een the fine, or vv^hich it ordains for them the imprisonment, or the death, upon the one hand and the act of violence, whether more or
;

less

outraii:eons,
is

upon the

other.

The

natural

again

exemplified in the workings of the

;

human

constitution

there being a connexion, in necessity

and nature, between the temper which prompted the act of violence, and the wretchedness which it inflicts on him who is the unhappy subject, in his own bosom, of its fierce and restless agitations. It
is

thus

that

not only

is

virtue

termed

its

own

404

POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT.

its

reward, but vice

tormentor.

own

greatest plague or self-

have no information of the arbitrary rewards or punishments in a future state, but from revelation alone. But of the natural, we have only to suppose that the existing constitution of man, and his existing habits, shall be
borne with him
to the

We

land of eternity

and we

may
own

inform ourselves

now

of these, by the expe-

rience of our

own

felt
tell

and familiar nature.

Our

experience can

that the native delights of

gratifications,-

virtue,

unaided by any high physical

if

and only
tute

not disturbed

by grievous physical
to consti:

annoyances, were enough of themselves

an elysium of pure and perennial happiness

and again, that the native agonies of vice, unaided by any inflictions of physical suflering, and only if
unalleviated by a perpetual round of physical enjoyments, were enough of themselves to constitute a dire and dreadful Pandemonium. They

awarded, but result from the workings of that constitution which God hath given to us; and they speak as decisively the purpose and character of Him who is the author
are not judicially

of that constitution as would any code of jurisprudence proclaimed from the sanctuary of heaven, and which assigned to virtue on the one hand, the honours and rewards of a blissful immortality, to vice on the other a place of anguish among the outcasts of a fiery condemnation.

END OF VOLUME

1.